Into the Blue
by Little Knight Mik
Summary: Yomi had never hated the colour blue until she met the Okumura twins. Every time they meet, more and more surprises emerge in her life - until it finally comes to a head and she's forced into their world of Exorcists. Despite all the surprises, though, Yomi finds herself latching on to one thing above all: She got away with beating up the son of Satan in kindergarten. [Rin/OC]
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

She has a lot of regrets.

Some of them are simple things, like regretting not buying something to impress her friends or regretting haircuts in her youth. Some of them are bigger things, things that probably would've made her a different person entirely today. She was a brat when she was younger, she won't lie. Her parents knew it, she knew it—even the forgiving priest down the street knew it, regardless of his kind exterior. She just never accepted it till now, and it feels almost too late to rectify.

It's probably a tad dramatic to think about, she notes as her bed is wheeled out of the room. It's just surgery; there's no need to feel so melodramatic. Over in what'll feel like seconds for her, and the recovery time is just a matter of months.

At least she can say with some certainty that she's not being as dramatic as her mother right now. The woman's in tears, clutching her daughter's pink beanie tightly as she tries to keep hold of her hand. She's never seen her mother like this before—well, except maybe once. The day of the diagnosis, where she'd been a blubbering mess and rambling that "this was supposed to be a small checkup, a step into adulthood". Surprise, Mother, she thinks. We've skipped half of the steps and careened straight into mid-life worries.

Really, it's not that big a deal.

Out of the ward and into the hall. Halfway to their destination. The nurse carting her around tries to make small talk—which, to her defense, is quite boring on his part—while Homura struggles to keep up and cut in every few seconds with reassuring words. If anything, they just serve to blow the situation way out of proportion. But she still can't bring herself to say out loud, "It's just an operation."

Homura is being pulled away from her daughter by another nurse—it's time for her to calm down and speak with the priest waiting in the next room. Her ears burn at the sentence, her gaze flickering to her mother for just a second before she regains her composure. Of course Homura would call in a priest. The woman is probably worried God won't be kind to her brat of a daughter the one time she needs help the most.

The double doors open upon impact with the foot of her bed, and she almost does a double-take at the man waiting beside the doctor within. If she remembers correctly, this is the room where you'd be put under before surgery—which means the doctor in front of her must be her surgeon, and the man beside him must be the priest. It takes her a moment to recognise him—it's been years since she's even walked into any of the churches in this town—but when she does she feels guilt well up in her chest.

Yomi was a brat when she was younger. She was a brat to this priest's foster children in particular. Called them all sorts of names, broke the younger twin's glasses for no reason whatsoever, and on one occasion she even had her arm broken in a fight with the older twin. The priest knew she was a brat, yet here he stands today—probably at her mother's request—with an easygoing smile on his face and a cross adorned around his neck.

The priest doesn't pay much greeting to Yomi when she enters, instead turning for her surgeon and giving the man a pleading smile. "Hate to be a bother, but may I speak with her in private?" he asks, and it's that same tone he'd talk to Yomi's mother with. The tone of a man who knew Homura's daughter was at fault, yet also knew his own children had done just as much damage after.

The surgeon nods and has the nurse walk with him back through the doors. Yomi wants to call out for them to stay, though she's not sure why. Maybe she's worried she'll be told she deserves this. Maybe she's worried he'll try give her to abridged version of the "you should've come to church more" speech. Maybe she's just worried he'll pity her.

The doors swing shut, and then he's sitting at the very end of her bed with that same easygoing smile.

"I was a little surprised when your mother called me," he starts. His tone is light—no animosity so far. "It's been about six years since you and your mother last visited the Monastery, after all. My boys even thought you'd moved away."

He chuckles, but she doesn't see the humour in it. His "boys" probably thought it was a relief she got pulled out their school and put into a private school closer to her own home.

"Um—" Yomi clears her throat. She really doesn't know what to say without sounding rude. The man's a _priest_ , after all. "Why did— I mean… Were you called here to…?"

The priest waves a hand at her. "Ms. Akiba just wanted me to pray for you before you went in," he explains. There's a playful look in his eye, like he knows that's the opposite of what Yomi wants. "Something tells me that won't put you at ease, though."

She huffs and glares at him. "I _am_ at ease. Everyone else is just overreacting."

"Perhaps." Silence settles between them. She's not sure how long the surgeon will leave them in private, though she assumes it may be for a good few more minutes. They probably think he's actually praying for her, like Homura requested. The priest removes his glasses and begins to clean them with his robe, but he's quick to pause and look back at Yomi again.

"Oh, by the way," he says. "Do you remember who I am?"

A sensible question. One she can't lie her way out of. The moment Yomi left those damn twins and started attending her new school, everything about that monastery was pushed out of her mind and dubbed irrelevant. "I, um… No…" Yomi can feel herself turning red with shame as she finishes with a mumbled, "Sorry…"

He chuckles. "No problem," he tells her. "I almost forgot who your mother was, honestly. People get more forgetful when they get older."

"I'm only fourteen." She glares at him again.

The priest shrugs. His glasses are pushed back onto his face, perched low on his nose. "It can start any time, I'm afraid. I do hope you remember the name Fujimoto, though—I'd like to keep in contact during your recovery."

Yomi blinks at him. He sounds so sure that she won't have complications during surgery, so different from her mother's wailing and the nurses' uncertain looks.

"What makes you so sure I'm gonna recover?" she argues. "You were called in by a hysterical middle-aged woman, and you met with my surgeon. Why are you so confident?"

Fujimoto raises his brows at her. That playful look is back in his eye—and it translates into his tone as he throws back, "Didn't you say everyone was overreacting? If that's the case, then I'm sure this is going to be a walk in the park for you."

Touché, old man. She frowns at him, but nods in agreement nonetheless. This is no longer the man who knew she was a brat. Instead, this is the man who sympathises with Homura and wishes no ill will towards this family.

The doors behind her swing open, and in walks the surgeon and nurse. The nurse has a mask on now, as does the surgeon, and they look more than ready to get started on the operation. Fujimoto exhales with a satisfied tone, like he's proud of himself for coming today.

As the doors open again to let him out, Yomi calls out, "Can you keep Mom company while she waits?"

Fujimoto replies with an easygoing, "Can do," as he lets the door swing shut behind him.

The anaesthetist raises a mask to her face, tells her to count to ten as loudly as she can, and then she's inhaling the anaesthetic by the time she reaches three. Yomi's out like a light by the time she reaches seven. She hardly makes it to eight, even in her mind, as darkness washes over her.

She has a lot of regrets. Especially concerning Fujimoto's sons.

* * *

 **Here's hoping this comes out decent. I haven't been able to catch up with the manga for a while ( _good grief I fell behind after the Kyoto arc_ ) so for reference sake, after the next chapter the fic will take place after the Kyoto Impure King arc. If anything feels out of place or doesn't look right, let me know and I'll fix it as best I can! I'm hoping to do a fortnightly updating schedule, but we'll see how I go from here.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Gosh, two weeks went by before I even knew it! I'm a day early with the update, but eh. Thanks for all those favourites/follows and reviews - I hope you all enjoy future chapters after this! This chapter is just a little bit more of a look at Yomi and her mother along with the twins, but hopefully it helps paint a bit of a better picture for how they'll get along in future chapters?**

 **Just as a quick reminder: After this chapter, the story picks up after the Kyoto Impure King arc!**

* * *

 **Chapter One**

"Sweetheart, stop scratching your head." Homura smacks her hand lightly. "You'll irritate it."

Yomi bites back the retort that it's already irritating. She instead pulls her beanie down further, covering even her eyebrows, and crosses her arms in front of her with defiance. The cars around them move just as slowly as they do, traffic keeping them from moving at the pace Yomi would like.

She hasn't finished chemotherapy for long, but she can already feel herself getting more and more energetic with each passing day. Her scalp itches as her hair starts to grow back; it's not quite at the soft fuzz she sees people in the movies get, but it's definitely there. She can _feel_ it.

And boy, does it annoy her to no end.

"How long until we get there?" Yomi grumbles. "I'm starving."

"Soon."

 _Soon_. Homura never offers anything more when she says that. It's like a silent rule to never question her about the passage of time again, coupled with that final tone that mothers use.

In truth, she's a little nervous. She'd rather deny it, even to herself, but the shaking of her leg is hard to ignore. It's been years since she'd last stepped foot in the Southern Cross Boys' Monastery, just as long since she'd seen the residents—with, of course, the exception of Father Shiro Fujimoto. He's been adamant in keeping up with the visits he'd promised months earlier, and Yomi could even dare say she considers him a regular presence in her life now.

But his sons? That's a whole can of worms waiting to make a mess of things. Fujimoto's just lucky that she and Homura are grateful for his support, or else they'd have been politely turning down his offer tonight.

Traffic starts to pick up again. Yomi sinks into her seat as she sees the Monastery come into view. Her hand reaches up and rubs harshly at her beanie.

" _Yomi_."

"Sorry—"

"I swear, you'll end up with a bald patch once it grows back."

Yomi rolls her eyes as Homura launches into a lecture about taking care of her scalp. She _knows_ that the skin will be sensitive; she _knows_ that it'll take a while to grow back; she _knows_ that scratching it may make it grow unevenly. This is the stuff she's reminded of every day by Homura thanks to her new nervous habit.

They have to park a short distance away from the Monastery. Homura looks around anxiously at the gates, debating with herself over whether or not people can park inside; it takes her a good few seconds of slower driving to decide on the sidewalk. They'll be out in a few hours, and traffic is already dying down now that it's later in the afternoon. No harm done, Homura reasons when Yomi stares at her blankly.

It doesn't take long for someone to come out and greet them. As Homura is lifting the plate of biscuits out of Yomi's hands, a man that is most certainly not Fujimoto waves to them from the gate. Yomi does her best to lower her beanie further, but it does nothing to hide her face from the man as they begin to approach.

He introduces himself as Nagatomo, a priest who works with Fujimoto. Up close he looks to be fairly young, though there's an age to his appearance that speaks loudly of his experience. If she has to guess, she'd put Nagatomo as one of the more responsible priests working here, if not _the_ priest who takes charge where Fujimoto can't. He accepts the plate of biscuits from Homura gratefully—even goes so far as to say that almond biscuits are his favourite—and makes quick work of escorting the two ladies inside.

In Yomi's honest opinion, this place hasn't changed one bit. Still an old-looking place, still rickety in some places. Out of a habit she never even realised stuck around, Yomi ducks her head as she passes through the front door. If she remembers correctly, she'd been afraid of the doorway collapsing whenever she walked through. It's almost amazing that the habit had stuck all this time, especially after all she did to forget the place.

Nagatomo leads them through a door towards the edge of the Monastery, and then they're discovering the home hidden within as he waits for them to enter. Homura is quick to gawk at the place, while Yomi just barely able to stick to the walls. It gives her enough of a chance to take in the home from a distance, to watch as Homura shakes hands with the priests carrying plates in from the kitchen. It's a cozy little place. Definitely somewhere Yomi can see the twins being raised, as well as somewhere she can see Fujimoto living. She's come to learn that despite all his eccentrics and jokes, he's quite the humble man; very different from the "bigger is better" outlook of Homura Akiba, that's for certain.

A large plate of rice is put onto the table by Fujimoto—she almost hadn't seen him come in—before Yomi is pulled away from the wall and forced to introduce herself to everyone. To Izumi, Kyodo and Maruta. It's awkward, shaking hands with them and being told they're happy for her recovery. These men never met her before, probably didn't know who she was outside of Fujimoto's information, and it feels overwhelmingly _polite_ listening to them congratulate her. She puts on a smile and thanks them, though, and allows herself to be escorted to the dinner table.

Homura receives the seat beside Fujimoto, effectively giving her a chance to make as much conversation as she wants. The woman loves to prattle on about everything, always a gossip. Part of Yomi is relieved that she won't be dragged into the conversation due to how far away they are, but another part of her just knows that Homura will take this as an opportunity to exaggerate Yomi's recovery process to Fujimoto. Every time he came to visit, the woman would always find ways to make Yomi's condition sound more dramatic than it was—probably in the hopes of making Fujimoto pity her, or make sure Yomi doesn't go down the "deep end", as Homura likes to call it. Yomi sits patiently at one end of the table, between Nagatomo and an empty chair. The seat adjacent to her, at the other end of the table, is also empty; she can only assume that these two seats, left untouched, belong to the twins.

Her stomach drops at the thought of sitting next to one of the twins. Would they still remember her from when she was younger? Would they still remember the ways she would torment them with the rest of their class?

The door at the far end of the room opens. Yomi panics. She leans forward somewhat, hoping to get her mother's attention as she whispers, "Mom. _Mom_."

Homura ignores her, too busy talking to the nice priest beside her.

In walk the twins, and it's not hard to tell which is which. If she remembers correctly, she used to make fun of the one with moles all over his face—Yukio, his name is. Though as a child, she thinks her nickname for him might have been something like "Puke-io". God, she was uncreative as a five-year-old. His glasses aren't as big as they used to be, though, and he's definitely grown into a fine young man. Definitely the kind of "boy next door" look you'd expect to see on a church-raised kid.

Yukio nods to her in greeting as he takes the seat next to her, and the bubbling anxiety starts to intensify. That means the seat _directly across_ from her will go to the older twin.

Unlike his younger brother, Rin is scruffy and covered in bruises. There's a bandaid covering the bridge of his nose, a squint to his gaze as he stares down Yomi thoughtfully. There's a glimmer of hope in her gut as she wonders if he doesn't remember her. For all she knows, Rin could have pushed his brother's bully out of his mind the minute she left.

Rin scratches at his head with a hum. In turn, Yomi rubs at her beanie and pulls it down her head further. One eye is almost entirely covered as she sinks into her chair.

While Rin is busy trying to figure out just who the hell she is, Yukio makes himself known to Yomi once again. He smiles warmly at her and tells her that he'll be more than happy to spoon food onto her plate if she can't reach, and even goes on to say that she'll probably enjoy the sweeter foods more than anything else.

Yomi blinks at him, surprised that he knows her preference in food, but is then quick to remember why he'd know. Fujimoto's been there to put her mother at ease during chemo, so of course he'd make sure there were dishes Yomi could handle. Normally she likes strong-smelling spicy food, but the treatment knocked her on her behind every time she ate. Nevertheless, she sends him a nervous half-smile and thanks him.

Fujimoto announces that it's time to say grace, a concept Yomi hasn't heard of in years. She watches as the priests and the twins bow their heads in prayer, as her mother copies and sends Yomi a demanding glare to do the same. Yomi just pulls at the material of her cardigan, too embarrassed to pretend she knows what to do. The whole thing is over within a minute, and then the priests are digging into the food like it's the first thing they've eaten in months. Even Nagatomo looks like he won't be able to say much with how much food he shovels into his mouth.

It doesn't take long for Rin to announce, "Hey, Old Man."

Fujimoto looks up from his bowl of rice. Homura is leaning around him curiously to see what Rin may ask.

"Who're they?" Rin asks. There's no tact to his question—it's just a blunt, possibly idiotic demand. Fujimoto would have had to tell the boys beforehand that they'd have guests tonight.

Yukio picks up Yomi's plate and asks her quietly what she'd like to eat. He doesn't seem to mind his brother's show of idiocy, instead letting his foster father take care of it. She watches him put a small helping of tempura onto one side of the plate, followed by a small amount of rice. It's a cautious amount, like Yukio isn't quite sure just how much she can stomach.

She can at least appreciate the courtesy.

As soon as Yomi takes her first bite of her food, Rin bursts out of his seat with a loud yell. He's unhappy that Yomi and her mother are here, now that he knows who they are, and Yomi can see exactly where this is going to go for the rest of the night. Fujimoto truly is lucky that he came around so often, or else Yomi would _definitely_ be begging her mother to take her home.

Fujimoto throws his chopsticks at Rin. They bounce off of the boy's forehead and land hazardously in his bowl. Yomi winces as she sees bits of cucumber fly out onto the table. It doesn't take long for Fujimoto to demand that Rin be respectful—Yomi and Homura are their guests tonight—and in return Rin grumbles to himself and sits back down. There's a nasty glare on his face as he slowly shoves food into his mouth.

Yomi does her best to ignore him, but it's hard to shake the stink eye when it comes from right in front of you. She tries to focus on Homura's conversation with Fujimoto instead, though it's hard not to roll her eyes each time she tunes in. There's just nothing to do to put her at ease or distract her from Rin's glare; Yomi almost wishes she could take her bowl and eat in a different room entirely.

It isn't until she's halfway through her meal that someone tries to make conversation with her. Rin is forgotten as Yomi looks to her right in surprise, staring down Yukio with a deer-in-the-headlights expression while she tries to decipher what it is he's saying. She hadn't expected anyone to say anything to her, and it's hard to hear most of the other residents over her own mother's shrill voice. Figuring out what he's asking her may as well be a task in itself.

"I'm… sorry?" she mumbles.

Yukio doesn't look displeased at repeating himself. "I was wondering how your recovery's going," he tells her. "Father doesn't tell us much—just the basic things."

She casts a worried glance at her mother. The woman sits right beside Yukio, hardly paying the boy any attention as she babbles on and on to Fujimoto. With all of her attention diverted to the man beside her, Yomi genuinely thinks it might be safe for her to say something without the fear of Homura interrupting and over exaggerating everything.

"It's fine," she says slowly. Her gaze moves away from her mother and back to Yukio, who looks to be interested in her reply. "Chemo's been done for a while. Mostly just getting back to normal now."

"Sounds like a relief," Yukio remarks. Homura pauses in her conversation, suddenly alert at the mention of a relief. Yomi grips her spoon tightly as she gets ready for her mother to launch into some big rant. She'll probably try to take Yukio's concerned—but still respectful—attention away from Yomi, to spout the same dramatic bull she tells Fujimoto during his visits.

 _Yomi is much too tired today. Chemo is really taking its toll on her. Oh, her classmates will laugh at her when she goes back to school without a wig._ Yomi knows for a fact her classmates won't care about how little hair she has on her head when she goes back. If anything, they'll want to know how terrible the hospital food tasted and whether or not Yomi got a hot doctor looking after her. They're teenagers, for Christ's sake—not middle-aged women with nothing better to talk about than how horrible someone looks.

Homura looks about ready to jump into their conversation, but Yukio is quick to stop her—possibly without even realising it. He points his spoon vaguely up at Yomi's head, eyes resting on the beanie.

"You used to wear pink a lot, didn't you?" He sounds half-certain of it, but still fairly interested in keeping up the small talk. Homura looks lost, glancing between the back of Yukio's head and Yomi questioningly. Almost as though asking why she isn't allowed to jump in and say her piece.

Yomi glares at her pointedly as she replies to Yukio, "Used to be my favourite colour. Who would've thought it'd fit recent events?"

He chuckles, seemingly oblivious to her glare at her mother. Homura huffs and looks back to Fujimoto with a pout. "I hear purple is the colour they use for survivors of breast cancer," he tells her. "It _is_ ironic, though. An in-joke for yourself whenever you wear the beanie."

That's certainly the first time anyone's thought it to be a funny coincidence. Yomi won't complain, though—especially since it's actually exactly how she feels. She likes to think that a few years from now she'll wear a pink scarf or coat, and share a small grin with her reflection at the symbolism behind the colour.

She returns Yukio's chuckle with a small smirk, feeling almost daring as she says, "I'll have to find some purple clips to decorate my beanie with, then."

For a fraction of a second it feels like the night is going to improve. Homura stays out of the conversation now that she's lost her opening to milk Yukio for pity, and Yomi can actually feel the itch at the back of her neck fading away with each passing second.

And then, above everyone else, someone asks, "Why are you guys talking about cancer?"

Yomi practically feels Homura's excitement at getting to talk about it. It takes her a few panicked seconds to figure out just who had asked about it—and then it hits her as she looks over at Rin in horror. His curious gaze shifts into that of surprise, like he isn't sure why Yomi would be so upset over being asked about something so simple. She can hear her mother inhale sharply, just barely catches the beginnings of her distraught expression as she starts, "Mom—"

"Oh," Homura wails, "my poor baby only _just_ got over her cancer."

Here it comes. The whole "pity me because I have a sick daughter" act. It's going to take everything in Yomi's power not to snap at her mother in front of all these people, to keep herself in check and keep up the image of being perfectly fine.

Rin looks over at Yomi in alarm, dropping his chopsticks entirely. She looks back at him helplessly as Homura runs a hand through her long hair dramatically. "Only fourteen and the doctor found the cancer out of nowhere," she goes on. "It was _devastating_."

Yomi almost wants to roll her eyes and say, "It's not like you were the one who had it." But that wouldn't help her case much, now that her mother's entered victim-mode.

Fujimoto is doing his best to calm Homura, a hand on her shoulder as he reminds her that Yomi's virtually recovered by now. It doesn't help. Instead of taking it to heart and calming down, Homura wails even more loudly and goes on that there's such a _high_ chance of it coming back, it's so much more _difficult_ to detect it in younger girls, Father Fujimoto. The way she prattles on makes Yomi feel sick to her stomach—barely any food even residing within, no less—as her entire scalp aches with an itch.

Cutting the older woman off mid-sentence and ignoring the stares from Nagatomo and the other clergymen, Yomi bursts out of her seat and yells, "May I be excused to the bathroom?"

Almost immediately, Fujimoto tells her which direction the bathroom is in and reassures her that she can take her time. Yomi doesn't reply as she power walks out of the room, fingers twitching at her sides. As soon as she's out of her mother's sight, Yomi rakes her nails over the beanie and scratches furiously at her scalp.

She thinks she may have spent about twenty minutes in the bathroom. It's a lot harder to hear Homura from here, and the door is thick enough to muffle even Fujimoto's loud laughter as the conversation shifts to something less dramatic.

Her reflection in the mirror shows exactly what Yomi wanted to avoid tonight. Her scalp is red, obvious lines showing up where her nails had scratched the most. She's gone pale, too—she knows for a damn fact that she had more colour to her cheeks when they'd left the house this afternoon, that she hadn't looked so ready to throw up within a moment's notice. It's stupid—it's exactly what Homura wants everyone to see, to pity. Exactly what Yomi isn't.

She feels as though she's suffocating. The water is cold on her hands as she scrubs them hurriedly. Yomi really doesn't want to go back out there and join her mother again. Now that Homura's been humoured with her wailing the woman won't leave the topic alone until tomorrow, leaving Yomi practically zero chance to return to having a civil conversation with Yukio.

Yomi very briefly entertains the idea of sneaking out through a window and back to the car. She has a spare key—Homura likes to think Yomi will hide in the backseat if the two ever get separated at a market or a mall—and it's not like they're going to be staying for much longer now that dinner has become just a _tad_ awkward. Sneaking out might not help her case much either, though. Homura will find a way to make it a piece of drama to cry to Fujimoto about more, and Yomi will just end up even more frustrated than she is now. She'd be better off just waiting for time to pass a little more, cool her head a bit, before returning to dinner and avoiding any irritating topics.

It's just as she begins to dry her hands on the towel beside her that a small knock sounds from the door. Yomi blinks in surprise, hardly expecting someone to come looking for her so soon. The door is pushed open before she can even reach for her beanie, a boy's voice calling for her. It's not Yukio's, but it's definitely too young to belong to any of the clergymen she'd met. Yomi inhales sharply and braces herself for the stress of a lifetime. There's only one person it could belong to.

When Rin pokes his head nervously into the room, slight blush on his face, Yomi immediately feels her shoulders tense up. It's a kneejerk reaction, just as ducking under the doorway had been—despite having never _talked_ with the boy in almost a decade, Yomi's body is still more than ready to fight back if they get into an argument. Her right forearm throbs just once at the memory of how tough Rin had been as a child, while her rationality reminds her that he's older, taller, and stronger while she is still getting over a few months of shit.

He clears his throat, inches inside. The door is left ajar behind him—a small, silent chuckle from Nagatomo makes its way through the open space. Still far enough away from the table to not hear everything clearly, which sets her mind at ease a little.

"I—Um," Rin tries. Whatever he wants to say just dies in his throat every time he looks at her, like he's almost embarrassed to be thinking it. More than once his gaze lifts to her head—to the soft, barely there fuzz—and it sends bolts of anger up Yomi's spine.

She snatches her beanie off of the counter and drags it over her head. It sits unevenly and uncomfortably over her skin, but it covers whatever he could stare at. Rin looks almost guilty as she glares at him, gaze falling to the floor within seconds of her action.

"Sorry you, uh…" He pauses, scrunching up his face as he thinks about his words. "Sorry about the cancer."

That's it? That's all he came to say? Yomi's lip curls into a scowl as she continues to glare. He won't look at her, still embarrassed, and it pisses her off to no end.

Yomi inhales deeply. Her fists shake at her side. This is exactly what she wanted to avoid tonight—an apology for something no one even has control over.

Through gritted teeth she growls, "Who gives a shit?"

He jumps in surprise and finally looks at her. His embarrassment turns into caution, and then Rin is taking a step back towards the door as he meets her glare.

"What you just saw earlier was what I've put up with since the diagnosis." Yomi scoffs. "Do you know how many times I've been told 'sorry' by a stranger? Do you know how much my own _mother_ has milked _my_ problem?"

Rin doesn't answer. Yomi exhales and tries to ease the tension in her shoulders. If she lets herself get angrier, she'll end up with her mother's attention once more.

"I'm sick of it. They tell you that you'll taste food a little differently and that you'll lose some hair, but they never tell you just how suffocating people around you get. I went fourteen years with being a spoiled brat that beat up the orphans down the street, and now all of a sudden I'm the poor little girl who had a malignant tumor in her chest." She throws her hands up and snorts. This isn't feeling like an argument against Rin anymore, but it definitely feels like she's arguing against _someone_. "It's dumb. It's—It's exhausting!"

Rin stares at her in silence, almost as though waiting for her to continue. There's a lack of chatter from the dining room that concerns Yomi, that sets off the panic that she'd raised her voice too much. Homura must have heard. Homura must know what Yomi truly thinks of her current situation.

Homura must be coming up with a way to milk it for more pity.

Yomi can only grind her teeth in frustration as she releases the tension in her shoulders. Her face rearranges itself as she adjusts her beanie, as she fixes her cardigan. By the time the silence has stretched on for far too long, Yomi looks nothing like a girl who had just yelled at a well-meaning boy for no reason other than frustrations.

She moves to walk past him. Her hand reaches for her back pocket—mostly to confirm that the spare key is still safe within. As she feels the grooves under her finger, Yomi looks at Rin and calmly asks him to step aside.

Rin moves, though his steps are stiff and awkward. It's the movements of someone expecting a blow to the gut at the last minute—and had it been any other night, Yomi might have humoured him. Had she not felt so tired and angry, she'd do it. She'd clench her fist and aim right for his nose after faking a punch to the gut, just like when they were kids. But she can't. It's not a matter of physically being able to, either; Yomi just cannot, for the life of her, mentally muster up the strength to punch Rin like nothing had changed from kindergarten.

Before she leaves him behind in the bathroom, Yomi says to him, "Thank you for the lovely food." It comes out condescending, especially given her current state in his eyes, but she means every word of it. Fujimoto boasts about Rin's cooking skills, and she won't deny that tonight's dinner was better than Homura's own cooking. Combined with Yukio's attention to Yomi's tastes, tonight may have been the first good meal she's had in months.

Homura tries exactly once to stop Yomi from leaving the Monastery. After her attempt to control her daughter fails, Yomi is left in peace to walk back to the car and lock herself inside. She lays back on the backseat, service manual held loosely in one hand and a small flashlight in the other. The rest of her evening is spent reading about the car's engine and suspension.


	3. Chapter 2

**Happy Thursday/Friday! Thank you guys for the feedback so far, I really hope you enjoy this chapter! I'm a bit early again with the chapter, mostly because I can't be sure how much time I'll have to update over the next few days ;D;**

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 **Chapter Two**

Never in her life has a cheap fast food burger tasted so good. Usually she hates the things, the way all the grease gets on her hands, but today feels different. Yomi can't seem to stop inhaling the burger, can't even feel disgusted as she licks the grease from her fingers. A coworker watches with mild interest, leaning back in their own chair in the break room. Yomi's shift starts in ten minutes, and she only got out of school half an hour ago. The bike ride to the supermarket had cost her a good fifteen minutes, while the past five have been spent shoveling any and all food given to her down her throat.

It's not the first time she's forgotten her lunch, and it's certainly not the first time Nakamura has had to buy her some snacks from across the street to make sure she doesn't collapse during her shift. But it's most definitely the first time Yomi's _enjoyed_ the situation.

As much as she hates to admit it, she buys fast food more than she eats her mother's cooking nowadays. When Yomi can't get to the kitchen fast enough, she sneaks out and uses the excuse of being invited to a friend's house for dinner. It's a disgusting habit by this point, and she's come to hate the feeling of self-loathing that comes with eating the stuff. But right now feels like the most blissful ten minutes of her life, and it finishes all too soon when she eats the last few bites of the burger.

Nakamura watches blankly, his usual poker face put up to hide his own amazement. He's told her multiple times that, of the people he's seen eat during his shift, Yomi eats the fastest—yet why this surprises him is beyond her, especially since he's the one who supplies her with food half the time.

She wipes her face with the napkin, if only to appear just a _little_ dignified. Nakamura chooses now to speak, probably thinking she won't snap at him now that she's had her fill.

"Have you ever considered eating a little more like a lady?" he asks her. Yomi snorts and rises from her chair. It can't hurt to put her apron on over her school's uniform—the dress shirt looks close enough to the supermarket's uniform to pass, anyway.

"Ladies get hungry, too," she reminds him.

Nakamura hums in disbelief. "I wouldn't call what you just did 'being hungry'. Looked more like I was watching a human vacuum cleaner."

He's probably not wrong. "Whatever. You'll still feed me if I forget lunch at home again, anyway."

"You're right. It's almost like I enjoy watching you contradict your own tastes."

She flips him off as she looks up at the clock above them. There's still five minutes till her shift starts. Yomi's already becoming impatient as she watches the second hand tick by; their manager wouldn't mind if she decided to come in early and help with carrying things, would he? Umeki is a stickler for punctuality, yes, but what about being early? Surely he wouldn't mind it.

Yomi scrunches up her face and sighs. "If I get yelled at for starting early by Mr. Umeki, would you have my back and say I helped you out while you had to deal with a customer?"

The dark-haired man raises his brows at the girl. "Why would you get yelled at? You're his favourite employee when it comes to customer service."

As much as that statement is true, Yomi still thinks that being the favourite won't keep her exempt from a scolding. She's not about to argue over the technicalities, though; not when there's only a few minutes till her shift begins.

It isn't until she starts to fidget on the spot that Nakamura sighs at her, resuming their conversation. "Just wander around and see if anything needs tending to before you start," he tells her. "You're gonna give both of us a headache if you keep loitering near the door."

Yomi doesn't even say a word to him as she rushes out of the break room.

There's really not a lot she can assist with as she waits, forced to do as Nakamura had said and wander about. It's not like Yomi prefers to be working at all times—if anything, she mostly just likes to keep herself busy. Distracted. It's the reason why she went for the job when she saw the ' _Help Wanted_ ' sign in the window months ago. It fills in time before she's left with her mother for the rest of the night, and time to herself is rare nowadays.

She finds a way to pass the remaining few minutes by helping carry a few boxes out of the storage room. Some kind of drink is inside them, one she can never bother to remember the name of. Yomi is granted just a glimpse of a lime-green coat through a gap in her box before it's taken from her with a blank, "Thanks." A register has opened up by the time her hands are free, and it doesn't take long for Yomi to pin her name-tag to her apron as a tall woman yawns behind the counter. They give each other a soft high-five as they switch places—it's their own personal "tag in" motion, a way to make starting and ending a shift feel more like a team effort.

Not even a minute passes before Yomi is starting to scan items and pack them in plastic bags. Her lane isn't filled to the brim like the express lane behind her, and it looks as though the majority of people moving through it want to buy cigarettes on their way out. She greets a weekly regular who buys his usual frozen dinners, a woman with two kids who had heard the prices in this store were cheaper than her usual haunting grounds, and even sees teens she'd been classmates with in junior high.

It's painfully obvious how few people she kept in contact with after she started high school this year. Despite how long she's been working, it never gets any easier to think about just how much she's grown away from her old friends. Sometimes they'll see her behind the register and actively try to avoid being served by her, clearly recognising her, and other times they'll nervously try to make small talk and act like they wanted to talk more in the future. No numbers are exchanged and the topic of social media isn't really appropriate during work (unless, of course, it was for the purpose of promoting their store). Under normal circumstances this wouldn't bother Yomi much. After all, she'd been separated by a few of her friends after primary school and she'd gotten along afterwards quite fine. Yomi still thinks about them—barely-there memories of being annoying and spoilt with three other kids—but she doesn't actively wish that she'd kept in contact. Starting high school feels different, somehow; it hurts a little more when she grows away from someone, and it's so much more terrifying finding new people to temporarily call her friends.

Maybe she just doesn't want to deal with the effort and awkwardness of meeting new people her age, she thinks. Nakamura gets along with her fairly well, and he's nearing thirty this year. Kids seem to like her okay—though she likes them more, in all their baby-faced glory—and it's not like she has problems jumping into conversation with elderly people. Maybe she just doesn't know how to talk to people her age. Maybe she's thinking about it too much. Maybe she isn't giving it enough thought.

Half an hour has passed by the time she actually pays more attention to the small talk customers are making with her. Nakamura comes back out with a box of supplies, steadily making his way over to the cooking station at the front of the store, and Yomi takes note of how many people are left in the store. What had started out as a small crowd has turned into a barely-there group: Four teens wearing True Cross Academy uniforms, someone who is obviously from the fast food joint across the street and refuses to eat take-out tonight, and a little boy carrying a large bottle of milk over to his mother by the meat aisle.

A slow night. Yomi can always tell what kind of boring a shift is going to be just by how many customers are left behind by six. She doesn't finish her shift by eight, which is how she prefers it, and the slow traffic allows her to have snacks in between customers. She'll eventually buy a frozen dinner and heat it up in the break room, and then she'll ride her bike home to a sleeping Homura by nine.

Nakamura passes her by as he puts on some gloves—usually a sign that he's about to do heavier lifting than he already is. He gives her a quick glance, waiting for her to finish bagging her customer's groceries, before he walks back around and pauses at her lane.

"On a scale of one to ten," he says casually, "how well do you think you can put up with being flirted with tonight?"

Yomi sighs deeply. Nakamura only ever asks this when one of their new regulars comes in. He's either alone or with two friends, and he always buys the cheapest of everyday items—keychains, pens, small notepads—just for an excuse to flirt with Yomi while she rings up his items. She's shot him down plenty of times, refusing to accept his offers of getting to know each other better, but he seems too persistent to even notice that Mr. Umeki is on the verge of banning him from the store.

His only saving grace is that he dyes his hair her favourite colour. But a dash a pink isn't exactly enough to make a playboy seem interesting to her.

She clicks her tongue quietly and waves her hand at him. "Probably an eight. I'd be a solid ten if his friends just dragged him away before he tried."

Nakamura winks at her while keeping the rest of his expression neutral. "I'll be waiting by the express lane with a Zippo, then."

She squints at him. "What are you gonna do? Mildly inconvenience him?"

"Clearly you've never tried to put a lighter out with your hand." He pushes away from the lane and heads over to the express lane, standing patiently behind the young woman and her son.

How can she even reply to that? Yomi stares at him in disbelief, pink-haired boy forgotten as she tries to connect the dots between his promise of backup and this new revelation. Is Nakamura saying that he's put a Zippo lighter out by pressing a hand to it, rather than just letting a small gust of wind make short work of the flame? Where's the scar, if that's the case? If it's a bigger deal than she'd assumed, why hasn't she seen evidence of a small burn on his hands before?

Yomi blinks and shakes her head. She's thinking too much about it—he'd probably cover any scar he has with foundation or something, and he wears gloves half of the time. It's really not that big a deal, when she thinks about it rationally.

The sound of packaged food sliding towards her breaks her away from her thoughts of Nakamura. Yomi jumps ever so slightly, heart beating wildly in her chest at the surprise; two of the True Cross students are in the lane, but neither of them are the one she expects. It's his friends, the small bald one and the rooster head with piercings. Equally threatening and feeble as she looks between them, it's almost amazing that they look to be as thick as thieves as they continue their discussion in front of her.

The rooster head—she swears Baldy calls him "Bon"—tells Baldy that it's a relief someone named Shima is helping get the rest of the food. She dares a glance down at the items she scans, surprised to find that it's actual vegetables and condiments being totalled up on her screen. Food for an actual dinner—the opposite of her own plans. Yomi's almost amazed, especially since Baldy and " _Bon_ " don't buy anything whenever their friend drags them here.

There's no harm in attempting small talk tonight, she thinks. After all, a checkout chick is expected to ask about her customers' days while she scans their food.

She almost manages to ask a short, "Big dinner planned?" before Bon takes notice of her presence. There's a stunned expression on his face, his narrow eyes widening to the size of saucers. Yomi has to stop herself from glaring at him in response.

"Crap," he says, and his voice sounds strained. Like he didn't want people to hear him curse out loud. "Sorry—didn't even realise we went to Shima's usual lane."

It's directed at Yomi, but part of it feels like Bon was saying it to himself. She pays little mind to his apology, shrugging casually as she tries to keep up a neutral expression. Shima must be the name of the pink-haired boy. Funny how she never took notice of what they called him till now.

"It's fine," she says. "You've got too much stuff for the express lane, anyway. Didn't expect you guys to have more than just a few pen packets this time, though."

Baldy chuckles as Bon blushes, mostly likely in embarrassment over every other encounter they've had thanks to Shima. "A friend of ours said he'd treat us to dinner if we paid for half of the stuff," Baldy explains. Yomi hums with interest.

"He a good cook?" she asks. Baldy nods again, this time with an almost insistent speed.

"We've only tried his curry rice, but man," he says dreamily, "is it the best thing for a chilly night."

It sounds like the guy's a decent cook. Part of Yomi almost wishes that she could try the curry rice herself, but she knows it'd be too much to ask for, even of these boys. Besides, it'd be best to avoid Shima as much as possible, even at the cost of a good meal.

She tries to keep the conversation alive, but only manages to chuckle out, "Maybe he should teach my mom how to cook something good for once."

The boys laugh back nervously. They don't know if there are any boundaries they shouldn't cross, and she really can't blame them. If someone started complaining about their mother's cooking skills to Yomi, she'd always have that lingering thought of, _She's not that bad, is she?_

"So what'd he have planned tonight?" she asks. She scans a carton of eggs with a curious expression. How long has it been since she'd eaten eggs with something?

Bon scratches the back of his head as a scowl makes its way to his face. "Asshole said it was a surprise," he tells her, "but I think he plans on making a feast. There was way too much stuff on the list for just one dish."

"Leftovers for the weekend, then. You guys are lucky—that's, like, three free meals in a row."

They hum in agreement, pleased by the fact that they'll be getting extra food out of it. She rings up the rest of their items, bagging each one with care as she reads out the price, and waits patiently for the two of them to pull out enough money between them to pay. She thinks it may be her lucky day today—Shima still hasn't fluttered over to her and tried to flirt. A small part of her hopes he's forgotten, but a slightly louder part just knows her luck isn't _that_ good.

As Bon and Baldy pick up the bags and stand a short distance away, waiting for their chef friend, Yomi waves to them and says, "Enjoy that feast tonight."

With the worst timing imaginable, a packet of meat slides over to Yomi and lands just shy of her scanner. A smooth voice, recognisable and unmistakeable, coos, "I'd enjoy it much more if you joined us."

 _Shima_. She has to hold herself back from hissing the name in annoyance. In the split second between hearing his voice and actually noticing him, Yomi's expression contorts into that of a disgusted glare.

"I'd rather not," she grates out. Bon and Baldy look exasperated already, furiously searching behind Shima for their chef friend.

"Is it because there'd be others?" Shima presses. "I know dates can be awkward when there's more than two people."

Lord help her. "Not interested."

The pink-haired boy pouts at her. He doesn't seem as persistent today, probably on a time limit due to his friend buying perishable ingredients and promising to cook dinner. She wishes the chef friend would cook for them more often, if only to keep Shima from pressing her to go out with him _just one time_.

She calls out his total and looks to him blankly as she waits for him to pay, but he doesn't immediately reach for his wallet. Instead, Shima crosses his arms in front of his chest and smiles guiltily at her. "My friend's still coming with the rest of it," he tells her. "I kinda rushed ahead while he was still picking something."

What an impatient, opportunistic boy. Yomi rolls her eyes at him. "How far do you think he is?"

"Not far—" Shima's eyes light up before he can even finish his sentence. Dread pools in Yomi's stomach as she sees the idea form in his gaze, the flicker of his eyes between her and one of the aisles in the store. "Okay! I have an idea!"

"No." She stuffs the meat into the bag with less care than before.

"Hear me out!" Shima presses his hands together almost in prayer, like he's begging her to listen to him. Yomi's brow raises ever so slowly, waiting to hear what inane idea he wants to share. "I know you don't wanna go out with me—"

" _Really?_ " she scoffs.

"—but what if I set you up with someone? I know a guy who's really nice and cool and he's great with animals."

What a dumb suggestion. Does he really think she'll pounce at a date with someone because they're good with animals? Everyone's definition of "nice" and "cool" are different, too! For all she knows, his friend could be the kind of person she'd never be caught dead in public with! Yomi rolls her eyes again, listening as Bon and Baldy try to talk Shima down from playing wingman.

He stares at her with an almost puppy-eyed gaze, something Yomi's always been susceptible to thanks to her love of small children. She clutches the bag tightly by the handles and sighs softly. Maybe if she agrees to one date with this friend, Shima will get off her back and just be a normal customer for once.

"Fine," she says shortly. "One date. Tell him I expect him to take me out Saturday. And he'd _better_ be as nice as you think he is."

Shima grins at her victoriously. He's probably patting himself on the back in his head, proud that he'd managed to make her cave in under pressure and agree to date at least someone he knows.

As she adjusts her grip on the plastic bag and listens to the sound of more items sliding into her lane, Shima claps once and says to her, "Well, you can tell him right now!"

Wait, nice-cool-good with animals friend is _chef friend_? Yomi has to hold herself back from gasping out loud. _Free meal_ , she thinks with a glimmer of hope.

"Tell who what?" comes a new voice, and she swears it sounds familiar. Mellow and curious, but she feels as though she can recall hearing it angrier and anxious; someone she's met before? Someone from middle school?

She looks up at him curiously. At first his appearance doesn't register with her—he's changed over the course of a year, that's for sure—but once it does Yomi can hardly stop herself from dropping both the bag and her jaw. She'd expected Yukio Okumura, genius of his age group and mature, natural-born leader, to attend True Cross Academy, even by scholarship alone. But _Rin_? It feels almost too unreal to process.

He stands there in the white button-down, free of his jacket like Shima, and his tie is loosened now that classes are over. There's almost no recognition in his eyes, like he can't quite figure out who his checkout chick is.

Shima gestures to Rin with a flourish. "Rin Okumura, chef extraordinaire," he announces. "And your date for Saturday."

Rin jumps at the statement. He goes from curious to flabbergasted at the drop of a hat. Jaw dropped like Yomi's, horrified expression trained on Shima as he splutters about not needing a wingman and that he doesn't have time to go on dates with strangers.

She's changed just as much as he has, if not more. He probably doesn't recognise her—her hair no longer a short fuzz, but now boyish and curling out from under her beanie; skin no longer pale, now with some of her original sunkissed colour back. She gained back some of her weight (she's not the twig that went to dinner at Fujimoto's Monastery, after all), but even that just serves to throw Rin off regarding who she is.

As Bon and Baldy rush over to Shima and scold him, Rin turns to Yomi with the most embarrassed, apologetic expression she's ever seen on the boy. Even when he'd expressed his sympathies for her time with cancer, he still hadn't looked as ready to drop to his knees and bow down for forgiveness.

"I—I'm really sorry!" he insists. "I swear, I didn't know he'd do this!"

To be fair, none of them had. Not even Shima had known he would attempt this until it sprang into his mind. Yomi shakes her head at him, waving her hands in reassurance. He still hasn't given any sign of recognising her, which is both a shame and a relief. How awkward would it be once it came out that the two already knew each other?

"It's fine," Yomi tells him. Except it's not. Chef friend that she'd almost considered going through with a Saturday date for free food is _Rin_. "None of his friends seem to be in on it."

The dark-haired boy is rubbing at his head nervously, muttering to himself that he'll have to beg the manager not to ban him this time around. He looks genuinely distressed at the situation, at Shima's antics. Yomi can only scan the food in her lane as she tries to avoid his gaze, listening as Rin attempts to compose himself.

"Look, um—" He pauses. When Yomi looks over at him, wondering what has him silent all of a sudden, she finds him staring at her apron with narrowed eyes. He must be trying to figure out what it says. Does he have eyesight as bad as his brother's, she wonders?

Yomi tugs at her name tag with a frown, worried that the name alone would let him recognise her. "It says—"

Rin cuts her off. "Akiba? _Yomi_ Akiba?" he says in bewilderment. She can't help the embarrassment that washes over her, the small pang of guilt that comes with Rin's recognition. If he remembers her name, he'll remember that disaster of a dinner—as well as their own rough history up until the middle of primary school.

But instead of looking appalled, just as she'd expected, Rin breaks out into a huge, almost idiotic grin.

"I didn't recognise you!" he marvels. "The hair and the clothes—" He gestures to her wildly as he slides the rest of the food in his hands into her lane. "You work here?"

Yomi barely gets time to respond—not that she would've responded within ten seconds, really. She stands there dumbfoundedly, tightly gripping a bottle of mayonnaise. Rin stares back at her, becoming excited over the prospect of reunited with an old… Oh geez, what even are they? Former schoolmates? Enemies? Acquaintances? It's so confusing to think about!

As she stands in silence, Shima breaks free from the headlock Bon had been holding him in. He flings himself at Rin, shaking the boy almost immediately. Yomi tugs at the her beanie, smoothing out a few of the curls sticking out, as she watches her screen in embarrassment. She'd been ready to deal with Shima and his antics, put up with him for maybe ten minutes. But this is way beyond her expectations—and as far as she knows, Yomi had still agreed to spend time with Rin before she'd known he was chef friend!

She rings up the total, cutting Shima off as quickly as she can when he mentions Rin "knowing all the cuties". Rin shoves him away and reaches for his wallet, hands her a single ten thousand yen note. She gawks at it; her gazes slips between Rin and the note, unable to process how on earth he'd come across such a thing. Only people who bought expensive wines and fancy meat products used this kind of money—not students on scholarships! Yomi blinks at the thought, suddenly very aware that she doesn't know the exact circumstances Rin would even be at True Cross for. Yukio, it's obvious; smart and charming, top of his class. But Rin…

Rin was _Rin_.

The register chimes as she starts collecting other notes and coins to give back, almost emptying her till with the amount she needs to hand him. Shima has joined his friends again, dejected, while Rin picks up the bag on the counter.

"So…" Yomi bites her lip as she tries to think of a way to ask her burning question without sounding rude. "True Cross?"

Rin blinks and looks down at his uniform, at the emblem on his tie. He laughs and scratches the back of his head bashfully, apparently not expecting the question.

"Yeah," he laughs. "Yukio and I are both attending. It was a surprise for me, too."

She allows herself a little laugh. At least he's aware that she finds it shocking he got in—and sees the humour in it. "So what kind of scholarship did they give you? Unless…" She eyes the ten thousand yen note suspiciously. It sits snug in her register. "The old man didn't win the lottery, did he?"

Yomi hands him the change as Rin looks at her with a puzzled expression. Like he's forgotten something she'd mentioned, drawn a blank on what he can say in response. In the hopes of helping him, Yomi tries, "Fujimoto?"

A _look_ crosses him. She really can't put into words what it is, what he feels behind it, but it doesn't bode well with her. Yomi's gut begins to ache, the way it always does whenever she starts to worry. She'd never really kept in contact with Fujimoto since the dinner she and Homura had attended, and she'd stopped talking to him or even visiting altogether by the time she was back at school again. Even before she'd started her job, she hadn't bothered to accept calls or let him know about her progress.

She's left with that worry as Rin avoids any other mention of the man, endless worst-case scenarios run rampant in her mind. "Sports scholarship," he says half-heartedly. "Yukio got in with an academic one, and I tried for the sports one."

He has his change and his groceries. His friends are waiting patiently for him, and Nakamura is still hovering by the express lane cautiously in case Yomi needs help. There's really not much of a reason for the conversation to continue.

Yomi inhales softly and slides her register shut. The receipt is printed out as she says, "It was good to see you again. Have fun with dinner tonight, too."

Just as she hands him the receipt, the expression on Rin's face changes. He goes from enigmatic and thoughtful to excited and curious, former mention of Fujimoto forgotten. He takes his receipt, but doesn't make an immediate move to leave like his friends do.

"What if we did go through with Saturday?" he asks. "Not as a date like Shima wanted, but just to hang out and catch up?"

She stares at him. Did he just suggest what she thinks he did? Rin, the boy she'd bullied for a good few years and even had her arm broken by at some point? _Wanting to hang out_? It feels a bit weird, the way he wants to just catch up with Yomi like they're old friends from middle school. What would they even talk about, anyway? Would they reminisce about the fact that they used to fight all the time? That they were essentially enemies all throughout kindergarten?

There's too many questions to consider with his proposal. Yomi doesn't even bother letting herself think on it further as she says, "Lunch?"

Rin beams at her. "We can meet somewhere, yeah?"

"There's a small park just down the road from here," she tells him. Rin's friends are watching through the window eagerly. Yomi does her best not to glare at them as she reaches for a pen. She takes Rin's receipt and writes down her phone number on the back. "Send me a message when you want to meet and I'll find us a spot."

He lazily salutes her, reading over the phone number before shoving the receipt in his bag and bidding her farewell. Almost immediately, upon exiting the store, his friends pounce him and begin their interrogation. Bon shakes Rin back and forth by his shoulders, yelling something incoherent, while Shima clings to Baldy and looks to be moping over the result of his flirting attempt. All the while Rin swats at them and tries to keep a safe grip on his groceries.

Nakamura slides back over to her lane, letting out a low whistle as he does so.

"That went a lot more differently than I expected," he jokes. Yomi doesn't find it very funny, and makes this known as she glares at him out of the corner of her eye. "Seriously, though, who was the guy you chatted with? Looked like you knew each other."

Who _did_ she just give her number to? That wasn't Rin Okumura from kindergarten and primary school, or even from last year. Rin Okumura wasn't so mellow and friendly, surrounded by friends that seemed to click well with him at first glance. Yomi frowns at the boys as they walk back to True Cross.

"How many days until the weekend?" she asks Nakamura. The man looks down at her with wide eyes, almost as though he can't believe she's asking such a thing.

"It's _Thursday_."

She grunts at the reminder. Two days to accept the fact that, not only has Rin Okumura changed, but he also doesn't seem to mind her presence anymore.


	4. Chapter 3

**Bit late with this one! Got a bit tied up with stuff before I could look over the chapter, but hopefully the next update won't be delayed. Thank you for the follows/favourites and reviews so far, too!**

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

Thursday night passed, Friday morning came. It still felt unreal, what happened yesterday. Yomi finds herself half paying attention to her surroundings, half thinking over the conversation with Rin during school.

Her friends had noticed her quiet mood, her contemplation. All throughout the morning they'd pestered her and demanded to know what was wrong, tried to make it sound like Homura was up to something again. If Yomi weren't so confused today, she would have almost been annoyed.

Something had felt off about the way Rin had avoided Fujimoto in the discussion. No remarks that if he'd won the lottery, Fujimoto would've donated everything instead of giving it to his foster kids. Not even a mention of how he's been doing nowadays—not that Yomi had asked, she reminds herself.

Whatever the reason he'd held back for, it bothers Yomi on Friday night. After a short shift at work that was spent doing stocktake, she wastes no time getting on her bike at 8PM and following the street signs to the Monastery. Nakamura offers to drive her shortly after she leaves, but Yomi refuses under the pretense that Homura will be suspicious, seeing her daughter driven home by an older man after her trip.

There's little to no traffic, but late-night shoppers and the night market are active as ever. It only ever happens once a week, most of the stalls lining some of the streets being open until late at night, but Yomi had never bothered to look at them until now. In a weak attempt to keep her concern for Fujimoto at bay, she surveys each stall she has to stop near with every red light she encounters. Clothing stalls, second hand phones, books. Things Yomi wouldn't mind taking a look at on her way back. She could always use a new phone case. Maybe even some stickers.

The wheels of her bike skid along the road as she rides as fast as she can down the familiar road. She thinks back to the way her mother had fussed over how they looked, whether or not they'd like almond biscuits, all throughout the trip. Street lamps are flickering to life by the time she's a block away. People are locking up their houses once they see the sky darkening and the moon slowly peeking out from behind the clouds.

Southern Cross Boys' Monastery is… Different. It's the nicest way she can sum up the appearance of the burnt church, of the rust on the gates. An entire portion of the middle building is covered in charred wood and ashes, the door removed entirely and a few destroyed pews outside in the open air. It looks like no one has lived, let alone held a service, in the Monastery since ten, maybe twenty years ago—but she knows it's been sooner since someone last set foot inside.

The gates are opened, a snapped chain lock dangling from one of the curved vine patterns. Beside the lock is a sign declaring, _Temporarily moved to Western Cross_. She frowns. That's half the city away from their current location. Yomi wonders why the church near her own house hadn't take them in; it's closer than Western Cross, isn't it?

She leaves her bike behind the bush that's growing up the other side of the concrete fence. It truly looks like no one's been here to take care of the place, and no matter how hard she tries Yomi can't figure out why they'd just _left_. Was there a fire? Is that why half of the church is covered in soot? Why hadn't Rin mentioned this when she brought up Fujimoto?

The light of her phone shines bright a few feet ahead of her, leaving Yomi very little room to see unless she stretches her arm out entirely. She trips over a few stones scattered at the doorway. The way they're placed makes her stare down at the doorstep in bewilderment; had someone thrown these at the Monastery? How immature. She knows for certain now that something must have happened here, if parts of the building are burnt and rocks are being thrown at the front step. But why wasn't it all in the news? Homura would've been all over it, Yomi's certain!

A small _clack_ sound comes from above her. Yomi barely has any time to look up and see what it is before something small and hard lands on her shoulder. It bounces off weakly and clatters to the ground, leaving her to hiss and grab at her shoulder as she searches frantically for what had hit her. As soon as her light lands on a small rock still rolling from its impact, Yomi's face twists up into a scowl.

 _Someone's come back to throw more rocks_. She barely hesitates to swivel around on her heels and shine her phone back at the gates. Her voice is venomous and loud as she calls out, "Who's there?"

There's no response. Not even the sound of footsteps running away from the gates reaches her ears. Either they walked away, or they're still hiding after being caught in the act. She frowns at the gate. Seconds pass, her light shining on the concrete wall for what feels like an eternity, before Yomi finally breathes out a frustrated sigh and lowers the light of her phone back to the ground. She'll have to check and see if anyone's been hanging around here whenever she has the time. It's pretty disrespectful to just throw rocks at a place of worship, even by Yomi's standards.

She lets out a scoff and makes her way through the open doorway. "Jerks," she mutters.

Inside the Monastery is a lot more hectic than outside, she decides. It's easy to tell that the very front area, the room were Fujimoto would perform sermons and listen to confessions, received the most damage in the fire. Everywhere is falling apart, holes in the ceiling that give Yomi peeks into the floor above; in the middle of the room, right at the podium, is a giant carpet of ashes.

Yomi shines her light over to the walls—half of them burnt, half of them covered in mould and fungus—as she walks carefully through the destroyed rows of pews. She stumbles over a few pieces of wood, but making it to the front of the room is an easy task as she looks around for any sign of someone still living here.

There's a strong smell as she gets closer and closer to the ashes, like burnt skin and nails and hair all combined into one scent. Yomi has to block her nose as it starts becoming unbearable, too difficult to ignore as she stands before the carpet of ashes. The shape of it is strange, hardly the random curves she'd expect from seeing a burnt floor. One end is shaped like an egg—the larger half of an egg—while another has two circular shapes protruding from its sides. Yomi squints at it as she looks from one end of the ashes to the other. Either someone put a lot of work into arranging the ashes into a weird pattern, or there was a bonfire here that had a very specifically shaped range. Yomi grunts at the second guess; someone coming in to arrange it all sounds a lot more likely than someone burning something of the same shape.

She searches for the door leading to the living area, finds it relatively quickly once her light reflects off of the doorknob. Yomi steps around the ashes and makes sure not to trip on the pews scattered along the walls; as she nears the door, she inhales deeply through her mouth before holding her breath entirely.

To her relief, as soon as she tests the doorknob the door opens. To her dismay, it creaks loudly as it swings open ever so slowly, revealing only darkness on the other side.

Yomi has to suppress her shudder as she shines her light into the room. If she recalls correctly, she should be walking right into the dining room area. She takes small steps inside, almost shuffling, as she reaches a hand out to feel for a chair.

"Hello?" she calls out. "Fujimoto?"

A loud crash sounds out from her right. Yomi shrieks and stumbles—she can hear scuttling along the wood floor, a door crashing open somewhere in the home. Yomi's heart beats wildly in her chest as she tries to keep calm, frantic eyes searching for a weapon to use. Her light falls onto the table, to the dishes that have yet to be put away, and in a fit of panic Yomi grabs for a butter knife and clutches it tightly in her hand.

She's afraid, but if it turns out that vandals are in the church, she knows she should at least intervene. This Monastery is someone's _home_ , and it would be wrong of her to let it be robbed.

(Yomi could also argue that it's wrong of her to be trespassing, if only to give herself a reason to leave and stay out of trouble.)

Yomi swallows her fear and storms deeper into the Monastery. She crashes into a chair on the other side of the table, almost falling to her face as she spots the open door leading to the kitchen ahead of her. She can see light coming from down the hall—a street lamp?—and for a second Yomi wonders if someone is still here.

"Hey!" she yells out once she's upright. If someone's here, someone who actually lives here, it would be an understatement for Yomi to say she wants to ask about what had happened in the last few months.

Once again she hears the clutter of pots and pans. There's a loud crash, like someone had just crashed into furniture while trying to run at last minute. Yomi scowls and immediately sprints down the hall, butter knife ready to strike if someone _not_ in priest robes is at the end of this path. Yomi's shoes slam hard against the wood floor, echoing down the hall, and she can hear the frantic fleeing through the door in the kitchen as she gets closer and closer.

She skids to a stop just as she bursts into the kitchen, rounding a corner at full speed in the hopes of finding someone she knows. Yomi arrives just in time to see the door slowly swinging shut, to the sight of the backyard belonging to the Monastery. She curses under her breath and jumps forward, ready to follow them out and demand who they think they are. But just as Yomi leaps forward, her foot catches on the frame of the doorway.

Yomi topples to the ground with a shriek. Her phone goes flying, as does the butter knife, and lands just a short distance from the door with its light shining up at the ceiling. Pain sears through her ankle and arms as she tries to sit up.

"Shit," she hisses, which is followed by a stressed, " _Shit_." She's in a house of God, for crying out loud! She can't just swear like a sailor in a house of God!

Just as Yomi pushes herself into a sitting position, hands supporting her weight as she looks back at her foot, a loud screech rings out through the air. She's startled, to say the least, as it sounds dangerously close and definitely angry. Yomi searches frantically around her for any sign of an animal in the kitchen, uncertain if she'll need to run out through the door and find a different way off of the property to avoid getting bitten. She'd fare better with her light, she thinks.

Yomi pulls herself onto her hands and knees. She doesn't want to hurt her foot further if she's injured it, and crawling sounds like the fastest option for her. Yomi slides her hands and knees along the floor hurriedly, eyes glued to her phone as she tries to keep an ear open for any screeches. She really should've just pestered Rin about all this, she thinks with a frown. It would've saved her a load of time and comfort.

The phone is within arm's reach when she hears it again. The screech is closer—coming from her right—and Yomi barely has enough time to look before a hard pain punctures her forearm. Yomi yelps loudly and rolls around, grabbing her phone as fast as she can while her right arm feels like it's been set on fire. The screeching is right in front of her, right on her arm, and no matter how hard she shakes it won't come off.

As soon as the phone's in her hand, Yomi shines the light on her arm and quickly tries to sit up again. She almost shrieks when she sees what's attached to it, almost vomits when she thinks of what she'll have to sit through once she gets up tomorrow. The rat is large and fat, blood from Yomi's arm coating the fur around its mouth as she continues to shake it off. Its tail flicks around aggressively, its claws digging into Yomi's arm and leaving scratches in her skin.

With a hard shake of her arm, she manages to fling the rat off of her. It flies in the direction of the door, scurrying out with an angry screech before she can even throw something at it. Her heart hammers in her chest as the blood drips down her arm and onto the floor. She can only kneel there and catch her breath as she mutters, "Fuck."

Finding a first aid kit is easy. Wrapping the bandage around her arm? Not so much. There's so much blood to wipe and setting something with one hand is more difficult than it looks. It's messy and loose by the time she's done with it, and through the thin layer of bandages she can already see the blood starting to seep through.

Stupid rat, she thinks bitterly as she makes her way back to the front room. Stupid Rin, she thinks as she marches over to the bike. Stupid Monastery, she thinks as she rides back in the direction of her house.

* * *

He brings a weird cat with him to the park. Shima had been right about him having a thing with animals.

Yomi half-expects Rin to just pull out a leash for the cat at some point, to suddenly take it for a walk once he sets it down on the table, but he doesn't. The black cat, no bigger than a shoebox, just sits on the table and looks at Rin with hunger in its eyes. Yomi can't help but stare at it in bewilderment, at the odd features it sports and the small blue and red pin attached to its collar.

She wonders if the cat had been born with defects—such as its two tails, the small nubs on its forehead—but can't bring herself to ask. What if it's rude to ask about it? What if Rin gets defensive about the cat or something?

Rin's busily pulling small containers from his bag, setting them down on the bench for each of them—including his cat. The cat howls happily and paws at the lid, forcing the boy to scold it like a child and pop open the lid for it. Yomi can just barely see what's inside: Bits of meat mixed with rice, along with an omelette stuffed to one side. A meal you'd give a kid instead of a cat.

She pops open the lid of her own container and asks, "So who's this?" Yomi really can't hold back the general curiosity about this little black cat; if she can't ask about its tail and the nubs, she can at least ask about why it was brought over.

"Hm?" Rin looks at her in surprise, probably not expecting the question. "Oh, this is Kuro. Kuro, say hi."

The cat meows loudly at her.

"Thought I'd make us coconut cake and—" Rin cuts himself off just as he sits himself down properly, finally able to look at Yomi properly from his spot. She glanced up at him, brows furrowed. His eyes are glued to her arm—the arm covered by the large white band aid the doctor had given her this morning. She slides the arm under the table, grunting at him in the hopes he'll stop staring. "The hell happened to you?"

Yomi rolls her eyes. She'll save any mention of the Monastery for later, she decides; he'd probably get angry that she'd snuck in last night. "I got bitten by a rat last night. Had to get a rabies shot before I came here," she says dully.

Instead of making any kind of sympathetic sound, Rin bursts out laughing. Kuro looks up at him, bits of rice stuck to its face, before resuming its meal. Yomi glares at him as she tears open the lid of her container.

"Laugh it up, Okumura," she growls. "You're not the one with a chunk of skin missing and a sore shoulder."

He wipes at his eyes and struggles to stop his giggles from bursting out much more.

"A _rat_ ," he wheezes. Yomi peers into the container with a scoff; if he's going to laugh at her, she just won't talk to him. After all, _Rin_ was the one who wanted to catch up. It wasn't like Yomi had been the one to suggest it and offer to make something.

But she had been the one to agree and give him her number. She reaches in for the fork—only to pause and really take a look at the slice of cake inside. Coconut cake, he'd said. Usually yellow or white and covered in coconut.

Yomi blinks in surprise. This cake is blue.

"Are you sure you made a coconut cake?" she says dryly. Rin's giggles cease the moment he hears her doubt, an almost annoyed look on his face at the question. It reminds her of the look he'd give her every time she walked over to him and Yukio during kindergarten.

"What's wrong with it?" he demands. It sounds defensive, but at the same time the questions demand that her answer be nothing.

She won't comply. "It's not yellow," she says with a huff. The annoyance in Rin's expression grows, and even Kuro looks up at him to see what's going on.

"I wanted to get creative and use colouring!" he snaps. Rin picks up his own fork and jams it into his own slice, tearing away a large piece and shoving it into his mouth. Around the cake, he adds, "If you don't like it, you can give it back and go eat that rat that bit you."

"That's disgusting."

"Unlike my cake."

She throws her arms up in frustration. "You're impossible," she growls. But Yomi doesn't push the argument further. Instead, she picks up her fork and tears into the cake in a similar fashion to Rin. She does everything in her power to ignore the taste of the cake; she has to keep her glare up, has to stand her ground until she _wants_ to acknowledge the cake properly.

That's how the two begin to eat in silence. Both focus on their cakes, digging in with spiteful bites, as neither deigns to offer a conversation starter to the other. The situation feels familiar to Yomi somewhat—after all, how often had they been like this in kindergarten? For the first couple of years of primary school? Even in moments of calm they were at each other's throats, and it almost shouldn't be surprising that they're doing it today.

Maybe she's just disappointed in the both of them. After seeing Rin act so mellow in the supermarket, actually invite her to lunch despite their history, his stubbornness and gross arguments leaves her a little let down; after all the effort Yomi's done to better herself physically and mentally this past year, her sudden displeasure over a cake made to be shared with her is disheartening.

She watches as Kuro licks up the last of its meat and rice from the container. The little cat looks between Yomi and Rin, green eyes wide and almost questioning, before it sneaks over to Yomi and paws at her fork.

Yomi can barely hold back her smile. The little thing is too adorable, she thinks; so adorable that she feels almost tempted to give it her cake, let it dig into the layers of cream and icing. The only thing holding her back is the knowledge that Rin will throw a fit, and then everything about this meetup will be ruined even more than it already has been.

Kuro meows loudly. Rin finally looks up from his cake, his expression softening once he sees the black cat at Yomi's container.

"Kuro," he whines, "you had plenty last night."

Kuro lets out a little trill. Yomi squeaks in surprise, almost unable to hold back the inevitable, "Aww," that threatens to spill out.

It doesn't take long for her to give in and scoop a heap of icing and cream up for Kuro. The cat eagerly watches her as she places it in its container, and then it's shoving its face excitedly into the food. Yomi giggles at it, gives Rin a quick glance.

Maybe she should make the effort to prove herself wrong. Prove that she has grown from her childhood—from last year, even.

It's tough to say, though. She inhales deeply and has to ignore the shame in her chest that tries to hold her back, and it's a battle in itself to keep her eyes level with Rin's. "I'm sorry I've been such an ass," she sighs. Rin looks at her in surprise, hardly expecting the apology.

"It's just cake," he says. "Not like it's the end of the world if you didn't like the colour of it."

"No, no. I mean in general—and I guess for the last time we ate something at a table together?" Yomi furrows her brows. Did it count if what she'd done was technically venting? No, she still yelled at him despite his politeness. She'll apologise for yelling last year, too. "I hit below the belt all the time when we were kids. Real insensitive, y'know? And last year was a mess—"

"Because your mom made something a bigger deal than you thought it was," he corrects her. She can't argue with him there. "C'mon. If Yukio or the old man made a big deal out of something I wasn't concerned about, I'd be pretty pissed too."

She huffs out a laugh. Takes another bite of her cake. "The cake is really nice, though," she admits. "Sorry for getting all stuffy over the colour."

He waves a hand at her. All of the stubborn anger they'd felt not even moments earlier feels like it's been lifted away. Maybe it was a good thing Rin brought this cat with him.

"Seriously, though." Rin scrapes up the last of the icing in his container. "How the hell did you get bitten by a rat? Half of the time you don't find them unless you hang out near dumpsters."

She jumps at the question. There's a few ways she could answer this—one of them involving the truth—but Yomi's somewhat worried the animosity between them will return if she says even one thing he doesn't like. They're trying to _get along_. No amount of sugar coating a B-and-E is gonna help her case.

Not that lying will help her much more. She's never been good with keeping to a story, after all. Yomi sighs and sets down the fork; she rubs at the band aid and frowns at the already fraying edges. "You had this look on your face on Thursday," she explains, "when I mentioned Fujimoto, I mean. I got a little worried that he might be sick or something, so I went to the Monastery last night to check."

Rin's entire body goes rigid. His shoulders are visibly tense, even from under his flannel, and his neutral expression looks almost like it's a struggle to keep it up. The hand holding his fork is white-knuckled, the fork bending ever so slightly at the pressure of his hold.

Something _must_ have happened at the Monastery, she thinks. But what?

Even Kuro is looking up at her with a stunned expression, almost as though the cat can understand the atmosphere settling around them. Yomi clears her throat and feigns ignorance.

"I got about as far as the front doors before it jumped out and bit me," she lies. "Pretty dumb of me to go at night, if you ask me. Probably stepped on it and it got angry enough to attack."

"Ah." Rin's voice sounds distant, just barely audible. "I haven't been there in a… a while. They must really be letting the place go."

"Yeah," she says.

All talk of the Monastery—and Fujimoto—ceases there. Yomi's left to change the subject as quickly as possible, if only for Rin's sake; she's missing even more information, unable to figure out just what's happened and how badly it's affected the Monastery's residents.

"So what's True Cross like?" she blurts out. It really hadn't been the question she wanted to ask, but it'll do if it makes the atmosphere a little lighter. "Fancy enough up there?"

Rin looks at her with genuine surprise. "You don't go there?"

"No." She shakes her head. "After the whole cancer junk, Mom refuses to let me to go a school that lets me live on campus."

He hums, shoving the last of his cake into his mouth. "It's huge," he starts. "Like a whole city of its own. Classrooms seat, like, twice as many students as other schools. The dorms have these huge baths, too, and the lunches you can buy are really expensive. The ten thousand I gave you would be reduced to just five hundred if I bought a single lunch."

Yomi's face scrunches up at the description. "No wonder your friends were excited about you cooking for them," she mutters.

Rin frowns at her. "We do more than just eat my food, y'know!" he insists. Yomi smirks at him.

"Like what? Wrangle Shima from every attempted conquest?"

"Besides that!" Kuro dives into Rin's container, lapping up any crumbs from within. The dark-haired boy doesn't even try to stop the cat. "We've— Kyoto! We went to Kyoto over the summer!"

Now that's a surprise. Yomi's eyes bulge as she recalls the appearance of all three boys, as she tries to place the budget they'd need just to make the trip to Kyoto _without_ living expenses. "You're kidding."

"Stayed with their families and everything," Rin boasts. "Even Yukio came."

She hums dubiously.

"I'm serious!"

"Uh-huh—"

A loud _ping_ cuts her off before she can poke fun at him. It's followed by more consecutive _pings_ before she finally sighs and gives in. It's her phone, tucked away in her pocket; no doubt each message she's received is from her mother, too. Rin watches her as he takes the containers from Kuro and puts the lids back on them.

The screen is lit even after she pulls it from her shorts, the messages slowing down to give Yomi time to read through them. She can just feel the exhaustion of dealing with Homura seeping into her skin as she looks them over.

 **13:23:** _ **Yomi where are you?**_ **  
13:23:** _ **Why did I get a phone call from the hospital asking about you?**_ **  
13:23:** _ **Call me ASAP**_ **  
13:23:** _ **I swear if you're getting sick again**_ **  
13:23:** _ **I knew you should've stayed home today**_ **  
13:24:** _ **Don't think I didn't see the bandages in the trash last night**_ **  
13:24:** _ **If something happened you can tell me**_ **  
13:24:** _ **You're not in trouble with someone are you?**_ **  
13:24:** _ **Pls call me**_ **  
13:24:** _ **Where are you**_ **  
13:24:** _ **Call me pls**_

"God," she sighs. She looks over at Rin and blinks at him tiredly. "I'm gonna have to go home. The hospital ratted me out to Mom—probably rang to make sure I was home after I got the shot."

He doesn't look fussed over the news. If anything, Rin looks almost encouraging. "We'll meet up some other time," he tells her. "I'll try bring Yukio with me so we can all hang out."

Yomi smiles at the idea. "Sounds good. Just text me when you're free next."


	5. Chapter 4

**Whew. This took a while, and it's not even the usual length. I think from now on for Into the Blue I'll be doing roughly 3k chapters, since the usual 5k I was hoping for is taking a lot longer than usual for me. Thank you to everyone who stuck with the story (and those who started reading and sent the lovely encouragement). I didn't realise how many people wanted to see this continued until I saw the amount of follows ^^" Hopefully the next update won't take upwards of four months next time.**

* * *

 **Chapter Four**

She's never seen the house in such a state of disarray before. Bedsheets and cushions thrown all over the floor of the living room, cupboards unpacked entirely and their contents left hazardously on the dining room table. Even family photos have been taken apart, the frames dismantled almost frantically.

Yomi swallows the lump in her throat as she walks further into the quaint apartment. It's finally happened. Homura hit her breaking point, all over a phone call from the hospital.

"Mom?" she calls weakly. All fight that had been in her, ready to be unleashed at the way Homura constantly hovers over like she's a toddler, just vanishes entirely.

There's no reply, but she can hear rustling coming from further in the apartment. One of the bedrooms, Yomi thinks. She sets down her bag and keeps her phone clenched tightly in her hand, not even bothering to slip off her shoes as she creeps down the tiny hall. The door to her mother's bedroom is wide open, mattress jutting halfway out the door, while Yomi's is left ajar. A light's on inside, the sight of a cushion flying across the room more than enough to give away where Homura could be.

"Mom, I'm home," she tries again. Still no reply. Instead, there's a loud smash of glass against a hard surface.

Yomi breaks into a sprint, panicked. Whatever's happening in there, it can't be good. She stumbles through the door with a strangled cry for Homura, prepared to find the worst case scenario unfolding before her eyes.

She's crouched on the floor, one of Yomi's throw pillows clutched in her hands. All around her is chaos—Yomi's bed has been flipped and dismantled, her vanity table mirror smashed and porcelain decorations broken on the floor. There's goose feathers spilling out from the large pillow next to her, and all of Yomi's clothes have been removed from her wardrobe.

There's no amount of words Yomi can muster to express her shock and horror at the sight before her. Homura just sits there, calmly tearing into the throw pillow with blunt, bloodied nails. Yomi flinches at the sound of the material ripping.

It isn't until the throw pillow has been rightly massacred that Homura actually looks up. There's a crazed look in her eye, betraying her calm movements as she looks Yomi up and down without a hint of recognition. Yomi's grip on her phone tightens, the small charms dangling from its case letting out the faintest of jingles as her arm shakes.

"Yomi?" Homura says innocently.

Yomi inhales sharply and looks away from her mother. It's really happened. She's really snapped, and all it took was a call about a rabies shot.

"What in the world—"

Yomi doesn't get time to voice her confusion. Homura leaps from the ground at an almost breakneck speed, latching onto the girl and digging her fingers into her shoulders. Yomi tries not to flinch away when she catches sight of Homura's fingers smearing blood on her sleeves, too scared of what Homura would try to do if she fled.

"Thank goodness!" Homura cries. She brings her hands to Yomi's face, to her hair, and finally pulls her into a hug. "You didn't reply and I thought something had happened—I thought someone was after you—"

"Why is the house destroyed?" Yomi whimpers. Homura just continues to babble about how worried she'd been for Yomi.

It was so horrible, Homura stresses, not knowing if Yomi really had gotten involved with "bad people". Yomi had left a note saying she'd been going out for lunch with an old friend, but Homura had clearly taken it as a cry for help—just like everything else Yomi leaves for her.

"I thought they'd take you away and hurt you and I was so scared," Homura goes on. "I had to make sure there was nothing in the house you were hiding from me—I could trade you for it—but I couldn't find anything and I was sure something had gone wrong—"

"Mom." Homura's grip tightens. Yomi finds it hard to breathe, let alone ignore the blood being smeared over her cheeks.

"The the hospital! They wanted to make sure there were no side effects—side effects from what? You didn't tell me anything about needing to go to the hospital! What if you got sick again?"

"Mom!"

"You could've been involved with horrible, horrible things for all I knew! What if I'd found drugs in the house—what if you'd needed me by your side—"

" _Mom!_ "

Yomi pulls her hands up and shoves at Homura as fiercely as possible. Homura releases her with great reluctance, falling backwards to the floor. One of her hands lands on some shards of porcelain, but she barely even reacts. Even as they stick out of her palm and dig in further with each movement, Homura just looks up at Yomi with a distraught expression.

"This," Yomi wheezes, heart pounding in her chest, "is too much."

"Wha—"

"It took me _ten minutes_ to get home. You did all this—this _mess_ because I didn't respond for ten minutes?"

Homura starts to cry. It's almost like watching a baby realise they've done something wrong, and promptly becomes scared of the oncoming punishment or lecture. The woman looks like a mess as she wipes at her face and dirties it with snot and blood, and all Yomi can do is watch.

"I was scared," Homura sobs.

Yomi shakes her head and sighs. Hopefully they have enough bandaids and disinfectant for Homura's hands. "You're just hurting yourself."

The rest of the afternoon feels almost strained between them. Even as Yomi fixes the cuts and bandages Homura's fingers, that suffocating feeling of being in the same room together doesn't leave her alone. It clings and clings and clings; countless worries spill into her mind, all of them stressing over how _easy_ it would be for Yomi to get sick, to get in trouble. She hates being alone with Homura. Every concern Homura conjures up winds up choking Yomi until she can't take it any longer.

She can't bring herself to say anything about meeting with Rin and telling her how he is—there's no telling how she'd react, especially with the mixed history between them. She can't really explain away the injury to her arm without including the rat or the Monastery. All Yomi can do is mutely patch up Homura and try to clean up the apartment as best she can.

Homura goes out after a while, somehow cheerful all over again now that Yomi's safe within the confines of home. She barely seems fazed by the bandages around her palms and wrists, nor by the bandaids holding her nails sloppily together as she waves to Yomi. Yomi barely even looks up from the trash bag as she loads pieces of porcelain into it. She barely even hums in response as Homura tells her she's going out shopping.

When that door clicks shut behind her, the lock sliding in place, Yomi scrambles for the kitchen.

From the middle of the kitchen is a perfect view of the front door—in particular, it's giant lock. It spins when the key is turned, alerting anyone watching that someone is coming in. Yomi might need all the warning she can get, especially with the unsettling experience just now.

It's her therapist's day off, but thanks to Homura's begging he's made himself available to call whenever Yomi needs to talk to him. He's well aware of the stress Yomi goes through thanks to Homura's behaviour, and she's more than certain he'll need to hear about this before the next time she sees him. Yomi's gone from weekly to fortnightly to monthly visits now. She won't be seeing him in person for another two weeks, and there's no telling what else could go wrong with Homura.

There's probably little chance he can help Homura, but he can at the very least give Yomi instructions on how to keep Homura from going off the handle again.

When he picks up, she can hear the tapping of a laptop keyboard in the background. He doesn't sound disappointed to hear from her, simply answering with a cheerful, " _Miss Akiba—this is a surprise!_ "

Yomi clears her throat and agrees. "I was hoping I wouldn't need to call outside of appointment times," she starts. And then she stops. God, where does she even begin with her explanation of the past hour?

" _But…?_ " he prompts.

Dr. Ono has proven to be a patient man with Yomi's problems. He listens and helps her whenever a problem comes up, be it big or small, Homura or someone else. She's sure he'll have _something_ for this. But what if he decides this is too far, even for Homura? There's helicopter parenting, but this is something else. Not every domestic issue can be investigated, but Homura's actions might just come up as noteworthy. And where does that leave Yomi? Her grandparents live all the way over in Sapporo, and she never hears anything good about foster care systems for older kids.

What if calling Dr. Ono is a mistake? What if Yomi winds up on her own, especially since the one refuge she _could have_ had is now dilapidated and abandoned?

" _Miss Akiba?_ "

She swallows the lump in her throat and inhales shakily. She might be making a mistake. She can't afford a mistake after this mess.

"It's nothing," she bites out. "I think I'm just overanalyzing something. Sorry to bother you."

She hangs up without bothering to wait for his reply.

* * *

"I'm so sorry about your bed, dear."

"It's fine."

"We'll go buy a new one after school this week."

"It's fine, Mom."

"Hm. It does look like a cute little futon the way it is now, though."

Yomi hums patiently.

"You'll need some new pillows, though. Those goose feather ones were expensive…"

Yomi pokes at the snowglobe next to her. It's been sitting on the table with everything else from the cupboard, still waiting to be packed away. Homura hasn't seemed to notice yet, too busy making a dinner she's certain Yomi will enjoy.

"It's not like we can't afford one," Yomi sighs.

"True. Maybe this is a good thing—we've needed to replace them for a while. I hear nasty little microscopic things live in your pillows after a while. Make you all itchy."

Does she mean dust mites? Or has she been reading some seriously freaky clickbait recently?

"Oh, it's been so long since we've sat down at the table together!" Homura beams over at Yomi. Yomi just looks back at her with a blank stare. "We can tell each other about our days and gossip about whatever you youngsters talk about nowadays!"

 _Like hell_ , Yomi thinks sourly. She knows exactly what Homura got up to today, and Homura doesn't need to know jack about what Yomi got up to. On top of that, talking about the latest trends will serve to make Yomi remember just how far apart she's grown from Homura—and might just send Homura on another household crusade.

"I might call it a night early," Yomi says instead. "I've gotta pick up for someone else's shift tomorrow morning."

"Oh." There's almost nothing in Homura's voice when she says that. No disappointment, no happiness, no anger. It's almost like the blank expression she'd worn earlier has reached her voice, threatening to wreck havoc again as soon as Yomi turns her back.

Yomi won't take the bait. She hates lying so much to get away from Homura, but she hates Homura's antics even more.

"I'll try bring us home some lunch if I get off early," she adds. Homura doesn't look away from the pot boiling away at the stove. She just stirs and stirs away. "How do you feel about takoyaki?"

"I'd rather you didn't eat takoyaki anymore."

The statement startles Yomi. Homura barely even turns around or adds another suggestion to their supposed lunch. She just stirs at the pot some more.

Yomi's almost scared to ask why, but musters up the courage anyway. "What's wrong with takoyaki?"

Homura shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She moves to look over her shoulder cheerfully at Yomi. "I've been thinking recently," she says. "It might be best for us if we cut out unhealthy foods from our life. I hear a lot of what we eat can make us very sick and even wear away at our organs."

Yomi squints at her. "Okay…"

"Since takoyaki has unhealthy things in it, we'll just have to skip it. I'll write up a list for us so we don't get confused by anything!"

This is odd. She can understand wanting to keep their bodies from breaking down due to what they eat, but Yomi can't see what part of the snack would be _lethal_ for her in the long run.

"Anything else I should stay away from?" she presses. Homura shrugs and looks back down at the pot, still smiling.

"From now on we're not eating meat and animal products," Homura decides. "That includes honey, too. Apparently they put a horrendous amount of sweetener in it and that's bad for the body."

It takes a moment to click. No meat, no animal products—including honey. It sounds almost like…

"A vegan diet?"

Homura giggles happily. "Essentially! I think it'll be fun to try something new, don't you?"

Trying something new? Sure, that can be fun. Yomi can get behind it if she has enough time to consider it. But being forced into it out of nowhere, by Homura of all people? There's no telling how frustrating this will be. She's never been against a vegan lifestyle—hell, Yomi considered committing to it before she found out how tedious it would be to keep up her iron levels without meat—but if _Homura_ is pressing for it due to health concerns, it won't be the experience Yomi would desire out of trying something new.

"I don't think I want to—"

" _We are doing this diet, Yomi!_ "

The crazed look is back in Homura's eyes as she whirls on her heel and screeches at Yomi. It's a warning to follow her instructions, and Yomi knows exactly the consequences if she doesn't.

Yomi doesn't protest when Homura prattles on about their new diet. She doesn't protest when a bowl of boiled tofu is put in front of her. She doesn't want to know just how close to another meltdown Homura is tonight.

She retreats to her room as soon as dinner is done, grabbing a towel and checking the hall to make sure Homura isn't lurking about. Yomi locks the door to the bathroom behind her and waits patiently for the bath to fill. She contemplates sending a message to one of her schoolmates, asking if she can come over for a while to cram some last minute revision work. It's not like she has an exam coming up, but using the excuse of needing to catch up and try raise her grade might get her away from Homura for a while.

Yomi decides against it. Better to let Homura have her way for a while, calm down and go back to being just a plain worrywart instead of… _this_.

It's better not to think about it for the rest of the night. Homura didn't forbid her from going out in the morning, probably believing the lie about needing to work, so Yomi will get some sort of break at least. Besides, the whole mystery behind Fujimoto and the Monastery still needs solving. She wasn't able to get answers today thanks to Homura interfering, but Yomi's certain she'll find something if she keeps digging.

She spends a good twenty minutes browsing online news articles while she sits in the bath. Something that happens to a public domain doesn't just go unnoticed, especially when people lived there when it happened. If she can't get answers from Rin, then the endless news articles on the internet will at least shine some light on the situation.

But by the time her toes are all wrinkly, she's found nothing. It's like the world just forgot that Southern Cross Boys' Monastery existed at all, barely a trace of it in online phone books and religious sites. She's got more questions than answers when she wraps a towel around herself and sneaks back to her room.

Maybe Yomi's just reading into things too much, she rationalises as she dries her hair. Maybe Fujimoto just had to move away and Rin wasn't able to go with him, going to True Cross instead. If Yomi didn't have to double-check everything with Homura, she'd do the same—move to True Cross, that is. It was a fairly old place, too, so maybe renovations are still needed now that no one's there.

Maybe she's not thinking hard enough about the situation, though. The faraway look in Rin's eye whenever Fujimoto was brought up, the half-hearted explanation for being at True Cross. Yomi's not one to follow a hunch, but she'll be damned if this one doesn't feel worth investigating. It'll bother her until she gets at least one question answered, even if that question is a simple, "Where did everyone go?"

She didn't have any plans for tomorrow morning—just a desperate need to get away. As she lays down on her mattress and sighs into her sheets, she makes her decision then and there. All of her morning will be dedicated to finding more clues and leads. She'll pay another visit to the Monastery and give Rin a call, and maybe she'll be able to put her mind at ease after a weekend of worries.


	6. Chapter 5

**Note: This chapter was originally published during the email alert/updating bug last week! I'm reuploading it today just in case those waiting didn't receiving alerts.**

* * *

 **Chapter Five**

"So are you into urban exploration now or something?" Nakamura glances down at her in disbelief. "Didn't peg you for the type."

Yomi kicks out at his ankle lightly. She isn't going to make the same mistake she'd made Friday, deciding last minute to call Nakamura for help. If anything he's trustworthy, and if someone really is squatting here he'd probably have a better chance at fending them off while Yomi calls the cops. He doesn't know the full story—mostly because Yomi isn't sure she knows it either—but the fact that he'd agreed to help anyway makes her feel just a bit more confident about her investigation.

She pushes the gate open. It groans at the movement, little bits of rust and dust falling off and floating softly through the air.

"I used to know the people who lived here," she says. Nakamura hums curiously, but doesn't press for names. "I think something might have happened, and I wanna know what."

"So we're ghost hunting."

"They're not dead, you ass." Yomi leans her bike up against the wall with a scoff. More dust and rust falls away. It makes Yomi feel like more than a mere three days has passed since she last trespassed here. "They left, and there's nothing online about what happened here. It's a public domain."

Nakamura hums to himself. He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a hand-rolled cigarette, quick to pop it between his lips and talk around it. "Snoop," he teases her. She stomps past him and through the gate. "It just looks like there was a fire. The building's old—it probably had some toxic materials in the framing that forced them out."

"But for this long?" She waits patiently in the middle of the courtyard for him. For all Nakamura's bravado in the workplace, he looks pretty reluctant to even set foot past the gates. "Look at the sign: _Temporarily_ moved somewhere else."

"Temporary can mean more than a year."

Yomi groans and crosses her arms over her chest. He's being such a weenie. "If you're not coming in, at least be ready in case I startle some rats or something. I am _not_ getting another rabies shot," she growls.

He lets out a lazy affirmative, lighting the cigarette and taking a step back from the gates. "Good luck," he calls after her.

Yomi can't help clicking her tongue in annoyance as she gets closer and closer to the Monastery. It feels almost ridiculous that a sixteen-year-old girl has more guts than a protective twenty-five-year-old man. She'll have to make sure to rub it in his face the next time they share a shift, maybe even remind him of today the next time Shima tries to hit on her and Nakamura offers to defend her.

The door is still open from the last time she was here, and inside looks almost pitch black without any lights turned on. It's like she's come back at night again, a hazardous environment sitting right in front of her with only a flimsy phone light to guide her. At least this time there's something different—there's significantly more dust in the air, and the mould on the wall seems to have spread further through the church. Yomi frowns and pulls her phone out of her pocket. She's definitely going to be more careful now.

She pulls her beanie off her head and pushes it right against her nose and mouth. It's difficult to take big, gulping breaths with it like this, but at least she won't inhale any of the dust—or whatever so-called toxic materials Nakamura is so concerned about. She taps the screen of her phone, switching on the light. It's just as horrendous as when she was last here. Yomi really doesn't know what she'd expected to find during the day, but at least the rats won't be as active now.

She hopes.

The floorboards creak under her weight, a warning to tread lightly through this abandoned house of God. The dust brushes against her every so often, occasionally clinging to her hair before floating down towards the floor. Yomi casts a wary glance to the mould on the wall. Something feels off about it, like it shouldn't… Shouldn't what? Be so big? Shouldn't give her chills whenever she walks close to it? Shouldn't even be there in the first place?

She looks directly at it, pausing between two burned pews. Yomi holds her breath as she gazes into the fungus and rot. Something isn't right about it. Seconds pass, feeling like an eternity, before she finally turns away and continues towards the kitchen. Yomi does everything in her power not to do a double take; the wall couldn't possibly have moved, couldn't possibly have pulsed like a beating heart. Shadows play tricks. That's all it is.

Once the confessional is behind her, the door to the kitchen is right in her view. The mess left behind from her tumble is still there, if not a little messier. There's still some blood on the floorboards left, tiny puddles of it spread out under the table and forming little trails up and down the room. Yomi scrunches up her face under her beanie—some rats must've been walking through it and spreading it around the room. It doesn't help to put her mind at ease over avoiding them during the day. She tiptoes past the table and looks slowly throughout the room, taking note of each doorway and area she can investigate. If she recalls correctly, the bathroom is to her immediate left—with the bedrooms further beyond that—while the laundry is to her right. Straight ahead of her, just beyond the kitchen sink and cupboards, should be the back door.

She moves left, making her way towards the hall leading to the bedrooms and bathroom. There's more dust floating about here, making her feel like she's suffocating as she carefully peeks into each open room. Bathroom, supply room, empty bedroom… It doesn't take long to reach the end of the hall, to find the first set of stairs and start the first trip up them. They creak worse than the floorboards in the entrance, a couple of steps actually threatening to collapse under her weight. Yomi's even more nervous than before.

As she arrives on the second floor, she spots more charred walls in front of her. It looks like whatever fire broke out here made it to the second floor. Yomi walks carefully down the hall, searching for something of note. Even with all the windows and daylight streaming through the rooms, everything still looks dark. It's like she's come back at night again, the dust so thick that she can barely see three feet ahead of her. She passes a room—only to backtrack and peek inside. Unlike the other rooms that offer accommodation, this one has some semblance of a personality to it. A sign that someone _lived_ in it before the Monastery was abandoned.

Old, frayed posters on the wall, an old collection of books sitting neatly on a desk. She recognises a few titles—they're required reading for junior high students, if she recalls—and frowns at the states of the two beds on either side of the room. One side of the room is neat, almost meticulously so; not a sheet out of place, not a poster pinned up crooked. The other side is messy, put together at the last minute as the small bin beside the desk is filled to the brim with scrapped pieces of paper.

Yomi reaches into the bin and unfolds one of the papers, making an effort to hold herself back from lecturing herself. It looks to be a cover letter, intended to be handed in to a job somewhere. A supermarket, she thinks? Up in the right-hand corner is a name, a simple address leading to the Monastery: _Rin Okumura_.

That settles it, she thinks. This is the twins' room. The twins' _former_ room. She shoves the paper back into the bin, making sure to step on the pile to make it fit. As the pile caves in on itself, more dust flies out. It doesn't just shoot out in a blast of air and float to the ground, though. It looks almost like it moves, like it's defying gravity as each piece separates and sticks to each other uncertainly.

Yomi frowns. She kneels down and removes her beanie from her face, setting it on the floor softly. Now that she looks carefully at it, the dust is too big to be just _dust_. It's small, yes, but it's not small enough. The size of a fly, maybe. She tilts her head to the side as she stares at one piece in particular, observing the way it moves left and right in search of other bits of _something_.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. Yomi huffs out a sigh, blowing the small thing further away from her. Nakamura's name appears onscreen as she answers, Yomi giving him a lazy, "What's up?"

Nakamura heaves out a sigh similar to her own. "I got bored. Whereabouts are you?"

"Second floor bedroom; take a left when you reach the kitchen. Cover your face," she adds. "There's an insane amount of dust up here."

"Roger that."

He hangs up. Yomi turns her attention back to the not-dust she blew at, expecting to see it descend toward the ground weakly. She doesn't expect it to come floating back to her, apparently now aware of her— _as if it has some form of awareness_ —as it reveals the last thing she wants to see on a tiny spec of dust. The green things boring into her, small black dots in their centres, have to be eyes. She never took special note of the shape of it—it was _dust_ —but now that she stares back at it, unblinking as it hovers closer, Yomi can see the small ear-like protrusions coming from above the eyes. The long trail of dust behind it looks almost like a tail, jagged and ending in a point.

Yomi leans forward; this is not what she expected to find today.

It floats closer, staring her down as the rest—she can see their appearances properly now, knowing what to look for—simply return to the darker corners of the room. Some go under Rin's bed, while others go under his desk. This one just stays put, as curious about her as she is about it.

Yomi lifts up a hand and pokes it with a finger. The thing wobbles for a brief second, then quickly regains its bearings and floats in the direction of the bin. She hums curiously. Yomi's not the biggest expert when it comes to bugs and small animals, but something tells her this thing isn't just your run of the mill creepy-crawly.

She shuffles along the floor until she's at the bed; she leans forward then, planting her hands firmly on the floor and shining the light of her phone under Rin's bed. She sees small boxes, probably unwanted things he couldn't take to True Cross, and more of the little creatures huddling together against the mattress. They don't react to her presence, merely shuffling together and blocking her view of the wall at times. Yomi doesn't remember seeing these kinds of things last time she was here with her mother. She doesn't even remember seeing them Friday night, no matter how dark it had been at the time.

If time was given to her, Yomi would ponder on it a bit more. Maybe even stay in the room and take some photos, try and interact with them more. But her visit is cut short quicker than she'd expected.

A loud crash comes from just down the hall, in the direction of the staircase leading to the second floor. It doesn't take long for a deep scream to follow, most definitely belonging to Nakamura. Yomi jumps to her feet almost immediately, bolting down the hall and calling out to the man. Nakamura is groaning and cursing under his breath; when she spots him, it's easy to see why. The stairs have collapsed under his weight, leaving him to drop straight into the splintered wood and dangle from his hands on the railing.

Nakamura lets out a hiss before he sees Yomi, and then he's raising his brows as he adjusts his grip. "I don't think I like this new hobby of yours," he grunts.

Yomi goes to meet him halfway—only to stop when even the top step starts to creak under her weight. She shifts around on the spot for a moment, panicked, before finally she blurts out, "I'll climb out the window and help you down from the first floor."

He grunts again, pulling himself higher up the railing. Holy crap, Nakamura has a lot of upper-body strength. "Pretty sure I dinged one of my legs. I'm in a _lot_ more pain than I look," he laughs.

"H—How much?"

"Pretty sure my tibia or fibula or whatever just snapped in half."

She shakes her head. "Your what?"

"My _leg_ , genius. Call an ambulance."

Yomi startles, panicking even more now that she knows how badly Nakamura might be injured. She speaks all at once, telling him not to put his weight on it and to hang tight—his sardonic response goes ignored—before Yomi dashes back to Rin and Yukio's room. She climbs on the desks and pries open the window as best she can, holding her breath as more of those little things fly past her face.

It's a steep drop if she just slides down, probably resulting in her own broken legs, so she moves with extra care as she reaches for the gutter and shimmies herself down. She barely even waits to get back inside before she dials 119.

* * *

She fucked up.

That's all she can say on the matter. As she sits in the chair beside Nakamura's bed, waiting with bated breaths for a doctor to come over and assess him, she just keeps telling herself she made a mistake. She shouldn't have taken Nakamura with her. She should've just kept her nose out of the Monastery in the first place. _She should've just asked Rin when she had the chance_.

Nakamura inhales from the whistle a nurse had given to him. She's not sure what it's called, but she knows it's one of those self-administered painkillers some patients are given while waiting for treatment. He doesn't look all that bothered by it all, even as the bone sticking out from his leg makes everyone who walks past go pale.

This isn't how she wanted her investigation to end, but there's no point in continuing it if she or someone she brings winds up in hospital each time she searches for answers.

"I'm sorry," she says, for the umpteenth time. Nakamura hums lazily, still too hopped up on the painkillers to properly respond, but he does wave his hand dismissively. He's telling her not to worry, but it's hard to do that when she's the reason he broke his leg.

The curtain separating Nakamura from the rest of the hall slides open. A doctor walks in, a small blue and red pin holding his tie to his shirt, while two people in black coats wait on the other side of the material. Yomi stares at the pin for a moment, certain she's seen it somewhere—Fujimoto used to wear one similar around his neck. She doesn't get long to dwell on it, though; the doctor starts asking questions of the both of them almost immediately.

"Ganta Nakamura?" he says, looking to Nakamura. The man slurs out a confirmation, grinning dumbly at the doctor. "And you're his friend?"

Yomi nods. "Yomi Akiba. How bad is the damage?"

The doctor frowns, though it's not a frown that says he has bad news. More like a frown that says Nakamura could've walked away with worse. "There's an infection where the skin broke, so we'll need to keep him here for a few weeks. He's lucky he has health insurance."

Nakamura nudges Yomi, still grinning. "I was a smart boy."

"You two were reckless, going into the Monastery while it was in such a condition," the doctor goes on. "I'll contact his family and let them know the situation. They can let his employer know he won't be coming in for a while."

Yomi stutters out, "I—I can let him know!"

The doctor blinks at her. "I—I mean, I can let his boss know," she goes on. "We work at the same place."

"Alright." The doctor clicks his pen and scribbles a note on Nakamura's chart. "The paramedics also said you were in the building for a time, not to mention that you've got an injury on your arm. I want you to stay behind for a bit so we can check your airways and look at your arm."

She doesn't get time to argue. He just turns and exits through the curtain, the individuals in black taking his place. Yomi's expression falls further than it already is, so much so that she doesn't even register the appearance of the two individuals who speak to them. A voice comes to mind, triggering a memory from inside the Monastery—but it doesn't stay for long, an airy female voice calmly telling Yomi to follow her into a private room.

The woman is small, with tired-looking eyes even as she smiles at Yomi and gestures for her to enter the room first. She doesn't look like a doctor or a surgeon, let alone a nurse. She looks more like someone from a private organisation with her fancy coat and pin resting over her heart.

When the woman shuts the door behind her, sliding the curtain closed so no one can peek in, she turns to Yomi with an almost sympathetic smile. "You've had a big day today, huh?" she jokes.

Yomi just sulks, looking down at the floor in shame. The woman's smile falters a bit, taken aback by the amount of guilt in Yomi's expression, no doubt. She moves over to the desk, setting down her bag and unfolding some of its contents. There's countless needles and bottles of liquids, all strapped on the inside neatly for easy access.

"I hope it's not too much to ask for you to remove your shirt?" she says as she pulls a stethoscope out from the bag. "I wanna make sure I hear your lungs clearly."

Yomi nods and quickly pulls the shirt over her head. For a second she thinks her beanie will fall to the floor, knocked off by the collar of the v-neck—but it doesn't. In fact, she can't feel the beanie at all. Yomi frantically pats the top of her head in search of it. It's not there.

"Shit," she hisses. The woman looks up at her in surprise.

"What's wrong?" she says quickly.

Yomi shakes her head. "Nothing, I just left something at the Monastery. Do you need me to sit down?"

"It's fine to stand." And with that, the cold metal of the stethoscope is pressed against her skin.

The woman—later mentioning her name to be Kinoshita—explains that Yomi will only need a small dose of antibiotics and a snack before being sent on her way. The injection isn't as painful as the rabies shot, and her arm doesn't ache as much when she puts her shirt back on. Kinoshita is nice enough to offer to pay for Yomi's lunch, treating her to the "less than stellar" hospital food offered in the cafeteria.

As Kinoshita is packing up her things, she looks over at Yomi's arm. "Right, I had to give that a look," she mutters. "Sorry. I'll give you a smaller bandage if it's healed enough."

She peels away at the layers and holds Yomi's arm delicately. Slowly the gauze falls to the floor, and the padding soon follows. Kinoshita prods at the wound with a gloved hand, while Yomi just stares at it in bewilderment.

"It wasn't shaped like that when I got it," Yomi blurts out.

Kinoshita blinks at her. "Excuse me?"

"It was smaller." She points to the wound. What had originally started as maybe a two-centimetre wound is now half the length of her forearm, the teeth marks more noticeable than before. "It was just a small chunk of skin, not a…"

She trails off. This can't be right. Why is everything changing today? Why isn't anything making sense? First the unsettling mould, then the little black things, and now this.

Yomi shakes her head. "Never mind. Do I need anything for it?"

She's dismissed after that, a new bandage stuck on her arm and a very gleeful Nakamura greeting her as doctors cart him down the hall. She smiles and waves back to him, nodding as he tells her that he'll call her when he's out. As soon as he vanishes around the corner Yomi speeds for the doors.

Fresh air has never tasted so good. She hates being inside emergency rooms, hates the smell of sterilizer, hates being poked and prodded by strangers with masks. Yomi stumbles past a family dragging their screaming child inside. She collapses onto a bench just outside the doors, hidden neatly behind a small bush that decorates the hospital entrance.

When her phone turns on, she finds fifteen missed calls from Homura, thirty-seven text messages from her, and one missed call from Rin. The pit in Yomi's stomach just grows. Maybe she really should consider staying at a friend's house tonight.

She searches for Rin's number in the contacts, calls him back as she clears the rest of her notifications. Homura can wait—especially since Yomi isn't ready for another one of the woman's breakdowns.

Rin picks up after the third ring. " _Yo_ ," he greets her.

Yomi leans back against the bench. "Hey. Phone was off," she says. "What's up?"

" _Ah, I was wondering if you had time to hang out today?_ " There's chatter in the background, most definitely another boy's voice. " _We've got too much leftovers for all of us to eat, so do you wanna have dinner?_ "

She blinks in surprise. "How much did you make?"

Rin laughs sheepishly. " _Too much_."

"Hm. I guess I can come over." Yomi kicks at the cement lazily. She really didn't think he'd call so soon and ask to spend more time with her. Maybe everything she's done in the past is water under the bridge for Rin? "Think you can meet me halfway to True Cross?"

" _Sure. And Akiba?_ "

"Yeah?"

" _Don't listen to anything the guys say. They're idiots._ " A shout comes from the background. It must be Bon, too deep to belong to Shima or Baldy. " _I'll meet you at the supermarket!_ "

He hangs up. Yomi leaves the phone at her ear for some time, thinking over what he's just told her. Don't listen to the guys? They're idiots? She can't imagine what kind of locker room talk they've been having that would lead him to that warning.

She gives herself a few minutes to stand back up. Yomi turns off her phone again, not wanting to hear it ring or feel it vibrate while she eats tonight. She's sure she can find somewhere to stay near True Cross—she has friends in the area who just barely missed out on enrolment there. She starts to walk across the courtyard, just as Kinoshita exits the front doors with a yawn. Yomi goes to wave to her and her associate, turning her gaze to the taller person, but stops cold in her tracks as she and the boy lock eyes.

Yomi stares with an absolutely flabbergasted expression. "Okumura?"


	7. Chapter 6

**Oof, Yukio's dialogue and irl stuff made this hard to write before a full month passed. Writing him pre-lineage reveal was easy, but Yukio's true self continues to elude me :s Hope you all enjoy this chapter, though, and thank you all for your kind reviews!**

* * *

 **Chapter Six**

This isn't awkward at all. No signs of discomfort here. Tension in the air? What tension in the air? It's all just a completely normal walk with an old friend-rival-bullying victim to the supermarket Rin said to meet him at. Yukio certainly isn't refusing to acknowledge her. Yukio certainly isn't acting a lot more colder than she remembers. Yukio _certainly_ isn't treating her the way she'd expected Rin to when he first reunited with her.

Except that he is, and the amount of denial she's forcing onto the situation is pitiful.

It wasn't all that bad—not to an outsider looking in. But for Yomi it had felt like a slap in the face. The very same boy who made sure to pay attention to what she ate one night—who had even seemed to have forgiven her for all her torment—had simply… ignored her after she offered to walk back to True Cross with him. All she heard from him was a hushed, "Damn it, Rin," and it's been absolutely silent ever since.

Even Kinoshita has noticed the tension in the air. She hasn't said a word, walking ahead of the duo at an almost hurried pace. When she'd previously looked to be on good terms with Yukio, a coworker with a positive opinion of him, she now looks anxious to escape the situation as soon as possible.

All Yomi can think is how the feeling is mutual. All this silence is unbearable, especially now that she isn't sure just what to say to Yukio to even chip away pitifully at the ice.

She inhales deeply, ready to say something, _anything_ , once they reach a crossroad. And then Kinoshita turns on her heel, pointing in a direction separate from the group.

"I have some work to finish up down this way," she tells Yukio, almost reluctant to even say anything to him. Yukio nods silently, going so far as to say he'll see her another time and to be safe. Kinoshita's attention turns to Yomi then, the woman pulling a small slip of paper and a pen from her pocket. "If your arm gives you any trouble or your breathing feels off, feel free to give me a call. It'll save you some money with hospital visits, and I can supply you with some medicinal herbs that might help with the injuries."

She holds out the slip to Yomi with a genuinely friendly smile. Yomi takes it, reading over the number and mumbling, "Sure. Thanks."

And then silence falls over them once more. Even as Kinoshita leaves, Yukio and Yomi watching after her, neither of them says anything to each other. They don't make eye contact or clear their throats. It's just… quiet. Horrifically quiet.

Yomi knows this is a hopeless fight, waiting for Yukio to say something first. He's always been a quiet, patient person, even during the most distressing of times. Unless he feels the need to, he probably won't say _anything_ until Yomi does. She wants to break the silence—she really does—but like the stubborn fool she is, Yomi doesn't want to be the one to start the most awkward conversation to end all awkward conversations.

But sitting here and letting the silence and avoidance go on will be worse, part of her reasons. She's going to have to choose between the lesser of two awkwards, no matter how much she hates it.

So she swallows her pride and balls her hands into tight fists. No point in delaying it any longer.

"So," she breathes out, "True Cross?"

All at once Yukio's face contorts. His lips purse tightly, his eyes shut almost in exhaustion, and his jaw sets in place as he inhales deeply through his nose. And then it relaxes, a calm smile on his face as he looks down to Yomi.

"Yes," he says smoothly. "I was fortunate to earn a scholarship."

There's a lot of things she could think about what just happened, but the pretentious middle-schooler in her is screaming, " _Fake!"_ That wasn't relief she just saw, nor was it actual friendliness. That was a look of someone forcing themselves to be nice—a look she herself dons every time she starts a shift at the supermarket.

She squints up at him. He looks back down at her, smiling innocently. Yukio Okumura still has that boy next door look to him, the appearance of someone who's grown into a responsible young adult. But something is off compared to last time they were face to face. It doesn't feel _right_.

Yukio tilts his head to the side and gestures for her to walk with him. Yomi follows reluctantly. She almost trips over her own feet when he says, "Is something wrong?"

Now it's her turn to inhale deeply, to steel herself and put on a mask. Of course something's wrong; she just can't figure out what. The wise choice would be to just say no, to just let it slide and pray that the supermarket is closer than it feels. The wise choice would be to not get confrontational.

But with the week she's had, does she really have any right to be wise? She's already trespassed in the Monastery— _twice_ —and started seeing weird things, and then the whole confusion over her injury… "Wise" no longer feels like a valid option.

"Yes," she mutters. She exhales softly and cradles her bandaged arm. "Something's wrong."

He blinks down at her, waiting for her to continue. Yomi just continues to stare at him. She's already started digging her own grave by replying, but what is she going to say? " _Something weird is going on with the Monastery_ "? " _There's little black things with eyes floating around the place_ "? No matter what she says, she's going to sound crazy.

Yomi looks away from him and frowns. There is one concern she can at least address, even if she'll have to put up with this fake Yukio persona. She starts to walk across the street, refusing to meet his eye again.

"You and your brother have changed. A lot." Yomi hears Yukio's footsteps behind her. At least he's following and listening. "I've been wanting to get back in contact with the Monastery, but no one answers the phone and Okumura gets… Weird."

"Weird?"

"He goes all quiet. I don't think he's usually quiet." Yomi shrugs. "Did something happen between him and Fujimoto?"

Same as Rin, a _look_ passes Yukio. It's not too hard to figure out what's behind this one, though. Yomi knows regret when she sees it. She knows longing when she sees it. She knows _mourning_ when she sees it.

He keeps up his completely professional tone when he speaks, though. Like he's holding the issue away from himself. "Father passed away some time ago."

Yomi frowns and keeps her gaze forward. "I'm sorry to hear that," she mutters, and she really means it. She wasn't all big on being involved with the priest because of Homura's paranoia, but Fujimoto really was a good man. He loved his kids and he had a good heart. Yomi would be lying if she said she didn't feel anything from this news, herself.

"No need to apologise, Akiba." Yukio walks a little faster, catching up with her with ease. His expression is slowly going back to that displeased mask he'd let loose earlier. Fujimoto is clearly a sore subject for both brothers, though it seems the way they react is different to how Yomi expected. "It's not like you knew him very well, anyway."

 _Asshole_. Yomi clicks her tongue and sneers up at him. Just as his foot sticks out in front of him, she stomps down hard on it and yells, "I knew him enough to miss him, jerk!"

Yukio just scowls, kneeling down and holding his foot with both hands.

"I'm trying to offer my condolences," she goes on. "I don't want a badge or a medal for it, but I _would_ like polite silence if you don't have anything good to reply with."

Blue eyes glare up at her, and he isn't holding back with his disdain anymore. Good, she thinks. If he has something he wants to say, he can do it without that stupid customer service mask.

"I'm not here to cater to your needs, Akiba," he snarls. "They told me where your friend got hurt—what the hell were you doing, trespassing in my own _home_? You couldn't just _ask_ or go to Western Cross, let alone leave it be." He inhales deeply, looking ready to keep going. But he stops, seeming to think better of his next statement.

Yomi isn't going to let him back down. She used to always let him cower and hide in kindergarten, but if he's going to fight back then she wants him to _fight back_.

" _Say it_ ," she growls.

He rises to his full height then. He wipes his anger from his face—but he doesn't replace it with the fake niceness. No, it's just a hollow stare that meets Yomi's gaze. Exhausted and empty, like he doesn't have the energy to be angry at her anymore. "You take up my brother's time," he says.

"Excuse me?"

"Did you ever stop to consider what Rin has to focus on in his own life?" Yukio's hands shake as they ball into fists. "Everything that's riding on him succeeding? His _future_? You just show up out of nowhere and distract him from it. You make him more complacent than he already is, and it's going to get him in trouble."

"I've met up with him _once_ —"

"And took time that could've been spent helping him!" His knuckles are turning white, jaw tightening as he tries to keep himself composed. "My brother's an idiot who forgets that every time you enter our lives, _something_ goes wrong."

Yomi isn't sure when she did it, but the sound of her hand smacking hard against Yukio's face is fresh in her memory when it dawns on her just what she's done. Her fingers twitch, her palm turning red as the seconds pass, and she can feel the heat rising to her cheeks. Is she going to cry? Is she embarrassed by what he's said? Enraged? Yomi can't tell. Her heart is all over the place as the words play over and over in her head.

She used to make fun of Yukio for his looks. For his moles, for his glasses, for even the colour of his eyes. She used to mock him for not looking how she liked. Now she thinks little Yomi was onto something back then, because looking into those blue eyes now, she sees nothing but hatred directed to her. A hatred that could very well be a decade long grudge, or even Yukio's own tipping point after running into her again. But it's a hatred that leaves her unable to look at him, not even as she turns on her heel and heads back in the direction of her house.

When Yomi looks over her shoulder again, just a short distance away from the crossing, Yukio is no longer there. Seconds pass, and then minutes; finally, after what feels like an eternity, Yomi runs a hand over her face.

She feels like she should cry. She doesn't want to, but everything in her is telling her she should be bawling her eyes out like a baby right now. It doesn't take a lot to ignore the urges, to fight back those tears, but the bitter feeling in her gut as she continues her way home is much, much harder to shake. She makes a quick stop at a phone accessory store, looking over the phone charms with mild interest. The colours fade from pink and red to blue and purple, and quickly Yomi starts to lose interest.

There's other places she stops by. There's the local fast food chain, which has a sale on blue raspberry flavoured slushies. There's a secondhand clothing store, which has a baby blue sweater on display in the window. There's the bookstore, which has a manga featuring a character with blue hair.

By the time she's back in her own street, she's sick of it. She's sick of the Okumuras, she's sick of all this secrecy, she's sick of Homura. She's sick of seeing _blue_. Things were better before her dad divorced Homura, and they were definitely better before she got the stupid tumour in her chest.

Rin messages her once during her trip, asking her where she is. At first she didn't want to respond, but the guilt of not saying anything to him because of _Yukio_ soon becomes too much. She rings him back, desperately praying for him to not pick up—for her to be taken to voicemail. But sure enough, Rin Okumura answers and asks her if she's a little behind.

Yomi has to swallow the lump in her throat just to muster some bullshit reply. "Can't make it today. Something came up."

" _Oh_ ," he replies. He doesn't sound let down, just understanding enough to even go so far as to add, " _Do you wanna come over another time?_ "

She hangs up and turns her phone off for a third time.

She doesn't even bother greeting Homura once she's inside, slamming the door behind her and heading straight for her room. She doesn't respond when Homura calls out, simply flopping onto her bed and burying her face into her pillow. Yomi can't even muster a scoff when Homura pokes her head in and sweetly asks, "Are you having boy troubles, sweetie?"

It's all just bullshit.

* * *

Dr. Ono's office always looks so clean. She wonders how he does it, what with how many files he must have to keep track of. Not a speck of dirt trapped in any nooks and crannies. Not a single paperweight out of place.

But he refuses to let her focus on his office today. No, Dr. Ono is adamant about getting to the root of Yomi's problems today, especially after the scare he was given by her call.

"Your mother had some concerns over the phone," he says softly. Yomi doesn't bother looking away from the silver letter opener at the edge of the desk. "Do you think she's right to be concerned?"

"My mother's a hypochondriac when it comes to me."

"But is she this time?"

She looks at him blankly. He's young for a therapist, though she assumes he's one of those fresh faces that works better with kids because of how close the age gap is compared to older therapists. When she first started seeing him she thought he'd understand the struggles of having a parent like Homura, but lately it's becoming apparent that he takes Homura's side over everything. Yomi wasn't even signed up for family counseling, and he still takes her mother's side.

" _Yes_." She's quick to survey the office further, hoping to find a distraction.

Dr. Ono sighs and reaches for her file. He pulls out some recent papers and reads over them, asking her, "Do you remember what I said in our last session?"

It was an hour-long session that took place two weeks ago. He needs to be more specific. "About what?"

"I said that I had a lot of clients like you," he explains, "who have parents that are just a tad _too_ concerned about them."

"Sucks for them."

"Not if they follow a plan. A lot of kids found that no longer bottling things up helped, while others found that meeting their parents halfway resolved a number of issues."

She curls her lip up at him.

"And I _understand_ that his has been tried in the past with you and your mother." He finally finds the paperwork he was looking for, pulling it from the file with a smile. "Like you, there's also a group of kids who struggle with either option. After our sessions this year, I think it best to recommend this group to you."

He hands her the paper—which, upon inspection, seems to just be an unfolded pamphlet—and gives her time to read over it. The first thing Yomi notices is the absurd title: Youth Mental and Familial Health Camp. It's a bit of a mouthful and on the nose, and a lot of the information listed under the title sounds pretty generic.

 _Meet new friends and discover hidden potentials!_ Gag.

 _Attend workshops that help with the everyday problems of modern teenagers!_ Pandering bull.

 _Enjoy a whole new perspective that will stay with you for life!_ Ominous and assuming.

Yomi inhales deeply and steels herself. She looks over at Dr. Ono and slowly says, "Are you shitting me?"

"I'm only recommending it," he reassures her. "You don't have to attend. Just think on it for a bit and let me know if you're up for it. If not for the counseling, then consider the activities available. Okay?"

She rolls her eyes and folds the paper in half. "Sure."

"Thank you, Miss Akiba. I was hoping to help solve this without prying to the point of discomfort, but this camp is the last thing I can think of." He sets her file down on the coffee table and scratches at his head. "Just promise me you'll tell me if you feel you're in any trouble. I know a lot of kids don't want the authorities involved in their issues, but sometimes it's necessary."

Necessary, sure. Scary? Definitely. If the authorities got wind of Homura's recent behaviour, things would flip upside down for Yomi. Moved to Sapporo with her grandparents, switched to a new school, coddled for being in a legally abusive home. Attention she wouldn't want, especially after all of Homura's fussing.

But if she could just find out the boundaries of what is "bad" by the law's standards, she might have an easier time.

"Can I ask a hypothetical question?"

Dr. Ono blinks at her, surprised. "Shoot."

"If Mom… wasn't doing well. How far would she need to go to be arrested or for child welfare to get involved?"

She fidgets in her seat as he stares at her in disbelief. Yomi feels the barest hints of regret as the silence stretches on; it's like she's just thrown herself into the spotlight right after telling herself she'd lay low.

"Well…" Dr. Ono sighs. "It really depends. What kind of hypothetical things would she be doing while she's… unwell?"

Yomi chews at her lip. So far, so good. "Breaking things," she lists. "Invading private space. Panicking if I don't pick up the phone. Controlling my diet."

He hums. Considers her words. The silence is just overbearing as she waits for his reply, as she watches his leg bounce up and down over his knee.

"I think," he says slowly, "that I might try and get Ms. Akiba referred to me. Preferably while you're at the youth camp."

"But I didn't say—"

"I know. But—hypothetically—if seeking treatment makes things worse before they get better, it's best to at least have you somewhere where you can still get help. Does that make sense?"

So he's saying Homura might flip if she finds out she needs to see a shrink. He's saying that Homura might increase her controlling habits over Yomi twofold if she seeks help. That's easy enough to understand.

There is one concern though. Yomi's not an expert on how medical referrals go, but part of her is questioning whether or not Dr. Ono's request will be legal. Shouldn't the patient have a say in it? Wouldn't it make more sense for Yomi to recommend Dr. Ono to Homura, and then get the referral?

She doesn't question it much, despite how much it bugs her. The session's come to an end and she needs to think on this youth camp he's shown her. With everything that's been going on—Homura, the Monastery, the twins—a pseudo-holiday might do her some good.


	8. Chapter 7

**New chapterrrrr! This was fun to write, so I hope you all enjoy! I'm excited to hear some of these theories y'all have on how Yomi will get entangled in the exorcist world, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing who gets it right once the reveal happens :3c**

* * *

 **Chapter Seven**

"This…" Yomi looks her mother up and down a few times. "This is a surprise."

Homura giggles and picks up her handbag from the table. "Isn't it? I can't remember how long it's been since I went out and had some fun."

She's not wrong. Yomi definitely wasn't expecting Homura to be invited out tonight, but the real surprise had been Homura _agreeing_ to the invitation. If she's honest, she wasn't even aware that Homura still had friends that enjoyed her company.

Yet here she stands, clad in a simple black cocktail dress and beaming from ear to ear. Homura hasn't dressed like this since the divorce, Yomi thinks. It's both odd and reassuring to see after years of depression and obsession. A peacefulness she's missed.

"How long are you gonna be out?" she asks. Homura rummages through her handbag to make sure she has everything.

"Maybe the whole night," she mutters, most of her attention on the bag. "I hope I don't have to get a taxi home. We're drinking, apparently."

Yomi hums. "See if one of them can drive you home instead."

"I will, I will." Homura pulls her purse out with a victorious smile. She pops it open and whisks out a small stack of notes, sliding them across the table to Yomi. She stares at the money blankly as Homura adds, "Treat yourself while I'm out. I wanna make up for snapping at you the other day."

A few seconds of silence pass by. Yomi just stares up at her mother, gobsmacked, as the pseudo-apology registers with her. "You're serious?"

A nervous laugh from the woman. "I know I can get intense," she admits sheepishly. "I was out of line when I changed our diets. Should've asked you first."

Yomi still doesn't take the money. "What brought this one?" she asks slowly.

Homura shrugs. "I just had to remind myself that you're almost an adult. That you're not a baby anymore."

It sounds out of character for Homura—she never considers that Yomi is her own person—and for a second Yomi thinks that Dr. Ono really has had a talk with her since their last appointment. Homura just looks helplessly at her daughter. She picks up her car keys and sighs. "I'll be home before midnight, I hope."

"Drive safe," Yomi mumbles.

She waits five minutes for the car to leave the driveway, and then five more after the lights disappear down the street. There's no way Homura will come back in the early hours of the morning or get drunk. As strangely and out of character she's been acting tonight, Yomi knows the constant panic attack within will take her composed nature by the throat and make demands by ten o'clock. Maybe even nine.

Yomi fiddles with the house phone for a second as she contemplates using the yen left behind. There's every chance that Homura will still get angry about ordering pizza. There's still every chance that the calm Homura will be gone by the time she gets home.

But the small hope in her mind that begs for what she's just witnessed to be true convinces her to take the leap. She dials the number of a nearby pizzeria and counts the yen on the table as the phone rings. Yomi gawks at the one thousand total that sits in front of her so innocently. She almost doesn't hear the worker from the pizzeria pick up the phone and ask her what she wants to order.

After a good half an hour of waiting and setting up a movie to watch, Yomi finally feels safe enough to say that Homura is going to be out for the whole night. Yomi is _completely_ at ease for the first time in… Well, a long time. Even when the doorbell rings she still feels relaxed; she doesn't even care that the delivery guy gives her chubby arms and legs a once-over, instead politely telling him to drive safe and to keep the change.

Yomi isn't the biggest fan of eating junk food, but after the week she's had she likes to think that two large pizzas and enough soda to send her into a sugar rush is more than deserved. Yomi digs into the margherita pizza first, taking a large bite out of her first slice and groaning happily. She can't remember the last time she was able to enjoy something like this in her own home, in her own living room, watching her own movies. Whoever these friends of Homura's are, they're a _godsend_.

Her night is going infinitely better than she'd expected it to. Yomi's been wanting to watch this movie for some time now, practically drooling over each promotional poster of the lead actors she'd seen on the streets. She'd been lucky enough to sneak it past Homura after blowing half of her pay on it a few weeks ago, and now that there's no one home to tell her how horrendous and cheesy the acting is, she's ready to relish it all.

Great dinner and a better show.

She's halfway through the margherita when she decides to take a peek of her second pizza. If she received the right order, it should be the crème de la crème of her order. It should be the icing on the cake, the cherry on top. Yomi holds her breath and pops open the lid, and then she's letting out a relieved sigh as the smell of garlic tickles her nose.

The garlic prawn pizza. Her absolute favourite.

She picks up a slice and prepares to bite into it, gleefully anticipating the flavours that are about to hit her tongue. Yomi's teeth are just about to tear off the end of the slice when she pauses. She can hear some kind of scritching sound coming from nearby—like a dog clawing at a door, but she doesn't have a dog.

With a groan, Yomi tucks the pizza back into its box and pauses her movie. The scritching is easier to hear without the background noise of her romcom drowning it out. She tiptoes towards the hall, pausing in the doorway to listen more carefully. Left, she thinks. The front door.

Yomi frowns as she stares at the white door. It's too late at night for someone to be walking their dog, and it's not exactly common for strays to be found around her neighbourhood. Maybe a rabbit or a mouse? She shakes her head as the handle slowly enters her reach. A mouse would find another way in, and rabbits aren't exactly the most trusting creatures. A cat, then?

The scritching intensifies as she takes a steeling breath. Fingers wrap around the cold handle of the door and slowly twist it. Her heart pounds in her chest— _thump, thump, thump_ —as she swings the door open, almost slamming her hand into the wall when her fingers slip off of the handle. At first Yomi doesn't notice the small thing that stumbles inside her house, tackling one of her legs. She's too busy hissing over her sore knuckles and staring out into the empty street.

But once she feels large hands grip her leg and hears the animalistic grunting coming from below, she panics. Whatever it is, it's not a normal animal. Stumpy little legs dangle about as oversized _sausages_ for fingers try to scale the rest of her. Large teeth that bring a familiar pain to her arm are bared at her, glowing yellow eyes glaring daggers at her.

Yomi shrieks. She swings her leg around and launches the little thing down the hall, sending it rolling like a bowling ball into the kitchen. It squeals back at her, clearly having not expected her to just _throw it_.

She sprints into the living room for her phone— _call Mom call Mom call Mom call Mom_ —and winds up crashing into the thing as it scuttles inside after her. Yomi topples to the floor (God, why is this familiar?) and kicks out at it as best she can. Once her phone is in her hand, slipping off of the couch along with one of the pizza boxes, she rolls along the floor in a desperate retreat to the door. She's crawling out on all fours as the sound of grunting and slurping echoes through the living room. That _thing_ has probably discovered her pizza, and it's definitely proving to be more interesting than Yomi.

There has to be a way to throw it outside without touching it, she thinks. Yomi's breath hitches in her throat over and over as she scuttles for the laundry. It's the size of a child, she thinks; maybe she can trap it in a laundry basket and slide it out the door or something? Yomi whines as she shoves the laundry door open. What if it doesn't work? What if this thing attacks her? Mauls her? She doesn't want to get another rabies shot. Hell, she doesn't want to set foot in another hospital after her last accident!

A large belch sounds out through the hall. Yomi gags. She grabs the laundry basket and tries her damndest to steady her shaking hands. Just as she's about to leave the room and stumble into danger again, she catches sight of what could be possibly her saviour in this scenario. Homura's never been bothered to get rid of the cat carrier in their laundry after Eisuke took Smokey in the custody battle. She's always talked about wanting to get another cat, but those aspirations never amounted to anything.

Yomi breathes out a shaky breath. This stunt had better work, or else Homura might just come home to a horror show.

She sneaks the carrier over to the living room door, keeping it out of sight while she peeks around the frame. The creature is busily shoving its face into her garlic prawn pizza, aioli smeared all over its face with every bite it takes. Yomi pouts—there goes her fun night of her favourite pizza. She bends down and pops open the lid of the carrier, her hands shaking again and her lungs feeling shallow. Thank God Smokey was a big cat, she thinks as she peeks around the corner again. This thing probably wouldn't fit if Smokey was smaller.

It's almost finished with her pizza when she musters up the courage to call out to it. Her voice comes out a lot more shakily than she'd hoped, the fear obvious in her tone, but it looks up angrily at her nonetheless. It no longer cares about her pizza. The creature braces its large hands against the floor and leans back on its stumpy legs. With a speed Yomi hadn't anticipated, it lunges for her.

Yomi almost doesn't pull the carrier up in time. Half of it goes it when it collides, slamming back against Yomi's stomach and throwing her into the hall. The other half dangles out precariously, trying to backtrack once it realises just what kind of pickle it's gotten itself into. It struggles enough to get one arm free, causing Yomi to panic. She dives over the carrier and slams the door repeatedly against its hand. It screeches. It whimpers. It snarls. Finally, it forces itself further into the carrier and lets Yomi lock it in.

She practically collapses to the floor once that door is shut. The rush of the chase makes her fingers shake, her legs basically jelly as she tries to convince herself to stand back up. This is not what she wanted to do tonight. This is _far_ from what she wanted to do tonight.

It continues to growl at her, even as she manages to drag herself into the living room to assess the damage. There's pizza all over the floor—a giant miss she'll have to clean up soon—and one of the cushions looks like its been put through a horrendous paint job. Yomi groans and presses her face to the floor. This night is a disaster.

A good five minutes passes before she musters up the energy to close the front door. No one seems to have heard the commotion somehow, too focused on their own lives to care about howling from a strange animal next door. Yomi holds a hand over her heart once the lock slides in place. She isn't going to open the door again tonight, and Homura can just use her key to get in. She slumps against the door, slides down until she's sitting on the floor. The creature in the carrier is looking right at her as it gnaws at the thin bars of the door, its howls now lowered to soft growls.

Yomi's hands shake as she clutches her phone to her chest. She really wants to call Homura for help. She really wants her mother to be there for her in a time of genuine distress. Her finger even hovers over her contact image—the angry cartoon red panda—as she chews her lip. She should call. She should call.

The creature growls a little louder. It pokes its large fingers through the tiny holes in an attempt to reach for her. Yomi shakes her head and exits out of her contacts. Don't call. Homura will make it worse. Homura always makes it worse. _Don't call_.

For a fleeting second she thinks to call a friend for help. There's friendships that go so far to even cover up murders—who's to say someone she knows won't help her figure out what this creature is and release is to its natural habitat? Miyazaki would know what kind of animal it is. Tanaka has a vespa that could transport the animal. Hell, maybe even Rin might—

Yomi frowns at the thought. What would Rin do? What would he do if something like this attacked him? She frowns even further. Why does it matter what he'd do? Why should Yomi be thinking of what he'd do over her own options? He's not here, and if Yomi's careful enough he won't know this even happened. No one will. As far as everyone else knows, Yomi was given some bad pizza and had a bad reaction.

Instead of calling anyone, Yomi opens her web browser. The internet is crazy enough to convince her that someone else might have experienced this. Maybe she's not the only one who's caught one of these things.

She looks over at the carrier and tries to take in as much detail as possible.

 _ **Round green horned animal**_

The first results are pictures of deer, antelopes, moose. A definition of what "greenhorn" is. Lists of horned mammals by rank. Yomi hurriedly adds more to her search, hoping to narrow the results even just a little.

 _ **Round green animal with big hands**_

A Goddamn green tree frog. Some star-nosed moles. A weird tiny monkey with big eyes. Yomi scowls this time. She dares a look back at the animal, only to find it scowling at her through the carrier door.

 _ **Ugly animal with big hands and horns**_

Every result that pops up afterwards has key words missing from each result. Yomi's heart sinks. She can't be vaguer than she already has been—it'd just give her tree frogs and moose again—and she definitely can't just scream, "What the hell is this thing?" into her microphone.

It makes something other than a growling sound. Yomi squeaks in surprise, immediately comparing it to a small bear's cries, as she drops her phone. It's finally calming down a little, though the panting between cries has her worried. Is it panicking? Is it thirsty? Yomi chews at her lip, feeling it become raw with how much her teeth have been digging into it tonight. Maybe it won't hurt her if she tries to give it some water. Maybe it's just scared and lashed out like most feral animals do.

She wobbles on her feet as she stands up. Balance is hard to maintain, but she manages after a calming few seconds. The cat carrier is heavy enough for her to pick it up with two hands; she almost can't heave it up onto the table once she reaches the kitchen, the animal moving around too much for her to keep her grip. She eventually slides it over the tabletop, though, and quickly makes her way for the nearest cupboard.

At first she grabs a small bowl, but then she starts to have second thoughts. What if it _does_ attack her again once she opens the door? It's an animal—a wild animal, at that, which means she can't predict how it'll react. Yomi hesitantly puts the bowl back in the cupboard and starts searching the other shelves, digging around for something easier to use. After what feels like an eternity of listening to it cry out and gnaw at the cage between pants, she finally pulls out a small water bottle. She unscrews the lid and fills it with water from the sink, giving it a test sip once the lid is back on. There's a bit of resistance with how much water comes out through the nozzle, but water comes out nonetheless.

She holds it by the end as she feeds the nozzle through the carrier's bars. Water drips out slowly, startling the animal. But it doesn't take long for it to latch onto the nozzle and start drinking. Yomi breathes out a sigh of relief. She pulls out a chair and flops onto it, making sure to keep the bottle within the animal's reach.

"This is weird," she sighs. The animal pauses to growl at her, then resumes drinking. "I just wanted a night to myself with zero stress. Who did I piss off on a cosmic level to deserve all this?"

Well, she thinks as the animal lets out a belch, at least now she has a reason to order two new garlic prawn pizzas—at the cost of now being aware of how hard the very same delivery guy will probably judge her for it.

Yomi dials the number on her phone. She looks up at the clock on the wall, lamenting at how few hours she'll have left to herself, before looking back at the animal. It's done drinking, licking its lips with a satisfied look on its face. She glares right at its glowing eyes.

"I hope you like horrendous romcoms," she growls, "because that's all we're watching until I can take you to the pound."


	9. Chapter 8

**Hope you guys weren't waiting long! We've got a new chapter ready for reading~**

* * *

 **Chapter Eight**

The more she learns about this little thing, the more she finds herself lost with what to call it. It never seems to actually _need_ to eat or drink, just preferring to, and ever since she first put it in the carrier she has yet to smell anything stinky from inside. It's like this thing is some kind of living stuffed animal, wrecking havoc instead of being a child's greatest dream come true.

Three days. That's how long it's been sitting in her closet as she asks around about it. Yomi's honestly surprised how little she's found, and by its slowly growing docile mannerisms. Part of her likes to think it's comfortable enough not to try bite her, but something in the back of her mind tells her it's just bored. The fact that she's keeping it out of the sunlight during the day seems to have put her in its good books, though. The biggest surprise might just be the fact that Homura hasn't found it yet, even with how much she hovers near Yomi's bedroom door while the teen is out.

She swings the plastic bag back and forth as she walks. Homura had gone back on her food freedom _just a tad_ after her night out. Yomi's thankful she hasn't had boiled tofu shoved in her face again, but she's definitely going to miss all the meat in her diet. At least she still gets to eat honey and eggs, which may as well be all her diet consists of now that Homura's trying her hand at cooking complicated meals again. Yomi had already stopped by the supermarket for another half dozen of eggs, as well as a small bottle of melon juice, so she has no doubt that Homura will be on her case for coming home a little late.

The past three days have also included ignored phone calls from Rin, all of which were followed by a quick message hoping that Yomi is okay. She can see where the concern may be coming from—she _did_ hang up on him suddenly the last time they spoke—and with every new day of messages comes more and more guilt over not answering him. Yomi had tried to block his number yesterday to stop the calls from coming, but to her surprise the decision was too difficult to follow through on. It's not that she doesn't know how to block a number; it's just that punishing Rin further than she already is for something _his brother_ said feels just a little unfair.

Yomi arrives at the gate to her house to see the light of her bedroom on through the window. Yomi stares at it for a second, having sworn she turned it off when she left for school this morning. She stands there a little longer, suddenly suspicious of her mother once more. She knew calm Homura wouldn't last. She knew it'd be back to the horrendous normal she knew best.

But in a surprising twist, the light grows brighter. It becomes almost blinding, even through the thin curtains at her window, and Yomi has to hold a hand in front of her face to keep from hurting her eyes. A loud pop sounds out, the light vanishing within an instant, and Yomi blinks away the dots in her vision. Was that a power surge?

The sound of Homura shouting, "Oh my word!" makes her think so.

Yomi prepares herself to face Homura and the apparent power surge. She sucks in a breath and walks through the gap in the gate, on foot in front of the other in her journey to the front door. She knocks once, tightening her grip on the shopping bag, and then walks inside with a loud, "I'm home!"

Homura lets out a soft cheer. She sounds as though she's moved from near Yomi's room to the kitchen. That was oddly quick, she thinks…

"I'm so glad you're back!" Homura cheers. There's a rattling sound that follows, and a familiar snarl hits Yomi's ears. No, she thinks. It can't be the chubby little thing she locked away in her room.

She drops her bag by the living room door and continues towards the kitchen. She spots Homura flit past the door once, soup ladle in her hand and a massive grin on her face. Yomi pauses while the rattles and growls fill the silence again. Is she happy? Genuinely happy? Or is delusional, controlling Homura back for revenge?

"What's for dinner?" she calls out cautiously. Homura hums loudly as the seconds tick by, seemingly unable to hear her own daughter's voice. "Mom?"

No response. She can't tell if this is worse than the investigation at the Monastery or not. It's certainly eerie enough to make the list of Yomi's worst nights.

Yomi quickly fished her phone out from her bra and sucked in a deep breath. If something bad is going to happen, CPS be damned she _will_ call Dr. Ono. She creeps down the hall and pokes her head through the kitchen door—so far, so good. Homura is setting plates and utensils at the table as the rattling increases near her. That cheerful hum is still filling the air, a song Yomi doesn't quite recognise off the top of her head. A company jingle, maybe?

A loud screech comes from the living room, followed by the trademark sound of a game show audience clapping. Yomi's heart leaps into her throat as the TV's volume skyrockets. Maybe it's her nerves, maybe it's the TV finally on its last legs, but she can almost hear a distinctive sentence being formed as the channels change every second or so.

" _Run, run, run_ — _Not_ — _Good times!_ — _she might_ — _Found you!_ "

The chill that runs up her spine is more than enough to believe the severity of the situation.

Homura clicks her tongue and looks over at the opening between the kitchen and living room. For once Yomi counts herself lucky that the people who build their house made a gap between the walls for easy access to and from the kitchen and living room. If it had just been a hall, that ominous TV warning would probably be for nothing.

"Darn television," Homura mutters. She sets the ladle down on the table and walks over to the gap, finally revealing the source of the rattling to Yomi once she disappears.

It's that damn ugly animal in the cat carrier, frantic and crying out for Yomi once it sees her. She grips her phone tighter.

" _Get_ — _right now_ — _outta' here, bro!_ " the TV continues to screech. She swears she recognises the last voice clip used. Isn't it one of the lines some romcom protagonist's best friend uses when they talk about girls they like?

Homura bangs on the TV. What does she do? " _Hurry now_ —" Homura curses and calls it a hunk of junk. What does she do? " _Big bad wolf_ — _No good, no good!_ —" Homura growls and groans. What does she do? " _Hurry_ —"

"Yomi!" Homura's voice is right behind her. Did she make a full round and go through the living room door, out into the hall? Yomi slowly, ever so slowly turns to look over her shoulder at her mother. It's hard to comprehend the person standing behind her as her mother, her immediate reaction being a startled step further down the hall. The mangled, exhausted woman who'd destroyed Yomi's room is back. The nicer, calmer Homura is long gone. "Don't just hover about! Come, sit and have dinner!"

The wide smile on her face is unsettling. Has Homura always been capable of looking this scary?

"N—" Yomi's voice barely comes out louder than a whisper. "Not hungry…"

Homura goes on as though Yomi never said anything. "When I found that animal in your room I was so ecstatic. Did you know the kids at the camp Dr. Ono offered had health problems like you?"

"I don't—"

"And those ladies I went out with—what are the odds that you bring home _just_ the thing they said worked miracles for each and every one of them?" Homura giggles. Despite every alarm bell ringing in her head at the statement, begging that she run as soon as possible and get help, all Yomi can think is how absurd it is that Homura, ever since her night out, knows exactly what this animal is.

Yomi takes another step away from Homura, closing the distance between the herself and the bathroom. If she can hole up in there and lock the door, she might be able to call the police. "I'm not sick, Mom."

This time Homura responds to her. It's the worst response Yomi could ever want from her.

"But what if you get sick again?" Homura whines. "I know you kids these days don't care about what makes you sick, but you have no idea what it was like for me—for your own _mother_ , Yomi."

She knows. Oh, she _knows_.

Another step. Homura hasn't noticed Yomi's plan yet, still standing in a relaxed stance by the living room door.

"What if it doesn't work?" Yomi tries. "What if they're trying to scam you?"

"Yomi." Homura shakes her head, now looking a little more distressed. She moves closer. Yomi takes another step. "Don't question your mother over this. Do you know how much I worry? How hard it is to tell myself everything will work out?"

One step forward. One step backward. The bathroom suddenly feels like a mile away.

"What would I even have to do with that thing, Mom?" Yomi gestures wildly towards the kitchen. "What's it got to do with anything?"

Homura smiles almost like Yomi's told a joke. Even laughs a little. "You eat it, silly!" she teases. Yomi feels like she's going to throw up. She must look it too, because Homura adds, "Not all at once—you'll choke, poor thing—but just do it one bite at a time."

Yomi stares at her in horror. She wants so bad to shake her head and say no, to scream for help, but no one had responded when that animal first arrived. Why will they now?

With another step towards her daughter, Homura holds out her hands as she waits for a hug. "Do it for Mommy?"

That's it. She can't do this.

Yomi launches herself towards the bathroom, almost tripping over her own feet as she crashes into the door. Homura screeches after her, louder than even the TV as it reaches full volume. Footsteps thunder after Yomi as she slams the bathroom door shut. It feels almost like a lifetime is passing while she fumbles with the lock on the knob, but soon enough it's the one thing keeping Homura from entering the room.

Her phone is still in her hand, miraculously not cracked with how tightly she's gripping it. Yomi's chest feels like it's closing in on itself as her fingers tremble over the screen. Call the police, her mind is screaming at her. Call for help.

She's not sure if it started once she shut the door or before then, but Yomi's face is soaked with tears and her nose is clogged in no time. It's hard to see the screen and her fingers keep wiping her tears all over her phone, her throat aching with every hiccup that bursts out.

Homura slams against the door, shaking it enough to make Yomi cry out in fear. She slides down the door and brings her knees up to her chest. If she were just a little smaller, she could fit through the bathroom window. _If she were just a little smaller_.

The phone beeps once, a text message coming through. Yomi's breath hitches as she sees who it's from. As much as she's been trying to avoid Rin, he's bound to call the police if Homura gets to Yomi before she's taken off hold. He's bound to help make a plan—the guy was an escape artist when they were younger, for pete's sake!

She hurriedly taps his contact and slams her thumb over the phone icon. He barely wastes any time picking up, just as Homura slams against the door again with enough force to actually push Yomi forward.

" _What_ —" Yomi is caught between a scream and a sob as he tries to talk over her. " _Akiba, what's happening?!_ "

She can hear other people in the background with him. Bon and Shima… A couple of girls she doesn't recognise… Is that Yukio asking him what he's doing?

Yomi doesn't even realise she's babbling in her attempts at a reply until she starts choking and coughing. Rin calls out to her again, just as Homura slams against the door one final time. It doesn't give, but Yomi certainly feels the impact more than the other two times.

"M—Mom—Mom—" she gasps, throwing herself back against the door. "She's— She's lost it. First the d—diet and—and now she's—"

"YOMI!" Homura pounds a fist against the door.

Her heart actually hurts now. Maybe she really does have something she should be keeping an eye on.

" _What's she doing? Are you safe?_ " There's a rustling sound on Rin's end, like he's moving around with the phone tucked between his ear and shoulder. " _Can you sneak out the window?_ "

She tries to keep her sobs under control. Homura's harder to hear through the door now, most likely having given up and left. Maybe she can run out the front door or something.

"Bathroom," Yomi wheezes. "Too small. Window's too small. I can't—"

" _Rin, what are you_ —" Is that Yukio?

" _What's your address?_ " Rin overpowers his younger twin's voice. Yomi presses her free ear to the door, listening intently for Homura. Maybe she hasn't given up so easily. Maybe she's looking for the tool kit so she can remove the doorknob. Maybe that'll buy enough time to actually call the police.

Footsteps storm back in her direction. Yomi's throat closes up as she starts to sob again. Shes back. Homura's back and she probably has something to get through the door with. Homura isn't stupid enough to grab a screwdriver or the tool kit. Why would Yomi even _think_ that was a possibility? Of course Homura won't make it that easy. She _never_ makes anything easy for Yomi!

" _Akiba!_ "

She stumbles back away from the door. She has to find something to fend Homura off with. "Ad—address," Yomi mutters into the phone. She's trying to come up with the number, the street name. It's right _there_ in her head, but why won't her voice let her say it? "S— Super…"

" _Super what?_ "

Why can't she push the words out? Homura's back at the door, knocking almost politely and calling out to Yomi. Yomy shakes her head. Don't come in. Don't come in.

"Super…" She crawls away from the door, not even bothering to wipe her tears anymore. "Supermarket…"

" _Supermarket?_ " Rin speaks to someone else near him, giving as many details as he can. Yomi can't process it all, and she barely even gets time to hear what he says next when Homura begins her assault again.

Chips of the door burst outwards towards Yomi, a large dent appearing just where he head used to be. She shrieks and drops her phone. Homura's found a hammer. Homura's found a quicker way inside. Homura strikes the door again as Yomi stumbles over to the window; this time the end of the claw hammer breaks through, creating a small hole for Homura to watch her through.

Yomi pulls open the window and shoves her face outside, dismayed at her shoulders getting stuck so quickly. She screeches to the houses behind her, " _Someone help me, please! Call the police!_ "

Another smash. The hole in the door is bigger, giving Homura enough room to reach in and unlock the door. It swings open, and in no time there's hands around her ankles that yank her violently from the window. Yomi's head crashes against the sink, a loud _thunk_ filling her head. The room spins and black spots cloud her vision. Yomi just barely sees her phone, still connected to Rin, up against the bath as Homura heaves her out of the bathroom by her feet.

"For _once_ ," Homura grunts with each yank at Yomi's ankles, "do as I _say_!"

As her vision starts to clear, Yomi sees a thin smudge of blood against the bathroom sink and the tiled flooring. She rubs at her face—sticky and warm along her forehead, painful to boot. Her phone is moving further and further away, far from her reach now but probably still able to pick up her voice if she yells loud enough.

Even though her throat hurts and the pain in her head is getting worse and worse, Yomi forces herself to do just that. She just hopes Rin understands her through her scream enough to decipher the address.

* * *

 **Not as long as some of the others, but this is where we kick it into gear! Let me know what you thought, and I'll see you all next chapter :)**


	10. Chapter 9

**Hello hello! While I was away on holiday I had plenty of time to focus on getting more chapters done for ItB! I actually got two done and a hefty start on a third chapter ^^ I could be the Cool Author™ and do a double update, but I'll save the next chapter for next week so everyone has enough time to read this one lol. Let me know what you think, and whether or not you saw it coming!**

* * *

 **Chapter Nine**

" _Follow—the—lights—_ "

There's so much blood. She's never seen this much in one place before.

" _—lights—Aki—ba—_ "

How long's the TV been telling her that? Five minutes? Ten? She can't tell anymore. She just keeps staring at her hands.

" _Aki—iba—_ "

Why are they so big? Fingers stumps, her palms the size of her head. Skin ash-black like she'd just thrown herself into a pile of soot. They look almost like that little animal's hands, ripping apart the sleeves of her school uniform as they become too large for the fabric to contain.

" _—he comes—Run—_ "

Who comes? Why is she going to run? Where will she run? She could be asking those questions, getting to the bottom of this, but she can't look away from her hands. Her blood-soaked hands, strands of her mother's hair tangled between the fat digits.

Yomi chokes out a sob.

" _Sorry—Sorry—Sorry—So—_ "

" _Shut up!_ " Yomi shrieks. Her forehead hurts in two spots, almost like bumps have formed from her clash with the bathroom sink. It makes her head ache worse than before. " _Just shut up!_ "

The TV flickers off. No more static. No more random cuts between channels. Yomi is left in a forced silence, unable to ignore the realisation of what she's done now. Unable to keep staring at her hands, stuck in catatonic shock.

If she'd stumbled upon this scene, just walked into the house and happened upon her mother, she wouldn't recognise her. Yomi's not sure what she did or how she did it, but Homura is not... It's not family friendly, what she's looking down at. She's amazed that she hasn't actually thrown up yet, but the urge to is there. Something is rolling around in her stomach, and she hopes it isn't the thing she was force-fed a mere half hour ago.

The hair that tangles around Yomi's fingers have chunks of Homura's skull attached, pink and white and _raw_. The pieces of bone sticking out from the mangled mess at her feet, almost like spines on a porcupine, are stark white and almost blinding. The smashed furniture, splintered and snapped in half, almost frame the body like a painting's borders. A morbid picture of someone she'd never recognise ever again, laid out right in front of her.

Yomi's hands drop to her sides—no, her knees. They're so much longer now, making up for the size they'd grown past her elbows. The pain on both sides of her forehead is starting to fade at least, but that gives her more focus on the remains in front of her. She wishes she didn't have the chance to process it all.

Yomi did this. She absolutely mutilated her mother with her own bare hands.

 _She's a monster_. The word circles around her mind over and over. Monster. Monster. Yomi stares down at her hands again, at the bits of her mother splayed over them. Monster. _Monster_. There's no other explanation for what's happened, for what's _been_ happening. _Monster. Monster_.

The large fingers shake as she moves her hands closer together. It's difficult to pinch at the strands of hair properly, but eventually she gets a decent grip. The dark locks are unravelled and dropped to the floor, leaving behind a small pile at Yomi's feet that looks almost like a hairball something had just coughed up. She stares down at the hair, then at her mother again, before she inspects the backs of her hands for anymore. Nothing in sight—just a swirl of regular peachy skin starting from the backs of her enlarged hands that slowly unravel along her arms.

Yomi follows the trail. They're the only parts of her hands that hold her original skin colour, which makes her wonder how much more of her looks like soot. The stem of the swirl travels over her elbow and under the sleeve of her tee. Yomi swallows the large lump in her throat as she pushes the sleeve over her shoulder—and lets out a relieved breath when she sees the soot fade into her normal skin. The stem blends in with her shoulder, leaving a short streak where the soot starts.

These are her hands. _Her_ hands. Not some animal's that she couldn't figure out the name of. Yomi's.

She starts shaking again—when did she stop earlier?—as one of the hands flies up to her hair. It fits almost the entire back of her head in its palm alone, and Yomi shudders at the feeling. It's like she's a child again, having one of her parents ruffle her hair playfully as she tries to steal a freshly baked cookie. The comparison brings a tug to her chest, a lurch to her stomach, and Yomi's throat closes up. She's not sure what to do. What does she do?

Yomi isn't sure how, but her feet manage to move on their own. Sluggish and dragging her toes along the floor, but she moves inch by inch out of the kitchen. Out into the hall. Along the faint trail of blood she'd left behind from her fall. She follows it right to the bathroom door, splinters digging into her feet as her heart feels like it's being torn in two.

There sits her phone on the floor, still taking Rin's call. She could feel amazed right now for how long he'd waited for her to come back, but she just _can't_. What's the point in feeling happy that he'd waited for her when the exact extreme she'd predicted came true tonight? Yomi may not have been the victim in this case, but someone has died in this house. Blood is on her hands—literally—and all Yomi can feel is anxiety and fear.

She drops to her knees, her knuckles knocking painfully against the tiles. She ignores the ache, doing her best not to throw up. Yomi hates throwing up; it always feels so terrible, always leaves a mess. Homura will get upset if Yomi makes a mess. She drags her hands out in front of her and crawls towards her phone. Being so low to the floor feels good right now. There isn't so many things to focus on, only pinkened tiles to occupy her attention.

Just before she has her head hovering over the phone, a loud clink sounds out in front of her. Yomi flinches—she felt that in her skull, of all things—and quickly lifts her head. As she does so, _something_ tears into the porcelain of her bathtub and digs out a line of dust. Yomi stares in horror at the tub. She lowers her head, watching as bits of dust fall from the top of her head. Distantly she recalls the small nubs on the animal's head.

She scrunches up her face and lets out a whine. A murderous freak; that's what she is now. That's all she'll ever be when the police arrive and see Homura's blood all over her, when the news teams come flooding in at this bizarre case of matricide. All of the evidence would go against her, she realises once the phone is carefully pinched between two fingers. Even the fact that she'd never told anyone about Homura's change in personality would weigh against her.

The phone hovers just over her ear, the sounds of running on the other end and cars driving by in the background.

"O—" Her voice is course, her throat so dry that Yomi wonders how she never noticed before. How out of it is she? "Okumura?"

A breathless reply greets her. " _Akiba! Did you get out?_ "

"She... She's dead..."

" _What?_ "

The urge to throw up returns with a vengeance. Yomi forces it down. Homura won't like a mess all over the bathroom floor—Yomi already made a big enough one with all the blood. As she hesitates to go on, Rin keeps talking in her ear. " _Akiba, I'm almost at your house—just stay calm._ "

"Calm," she wheezes.

" _Yeah, calm. Just give me two min— Shit!_ " His voice vanishes for a moment, tumbling replacing it. Yomi thinks he must have dropped the phone, because what else could it be? Rin still hasn't picked the phone back up when she replies, but she figures now might be a good time to end the call.

Homura will get upset if she dawdles with cleaning up.

"I need... Need to get a mop. Sorry to bother you."

She hangs up.

* * *

"What's the verdict?" He keeps up with Shura's strides easily. Even as he keeps his eyes on the clipboard, on the papers that weigh as much as his glasses, he doesn't trip or stumble. Everyone else moves out of his way, watching him go on over their shoulders.

Shura loosens her scarf with a huff. "I personally think it's not a regular possession," she tells him. She bolts ahead to open the next door, sticking a foot out in an attempt to trip him as she waits. Yukio just walks over it, unfazed. "The way it presents itself reminds me of smaller-scale demons. Demons that can't possess humans."

"There's markings along the hands similar to a goblin's," Yukio agrees. He flips over the page, looking at the photos taken of the girl they'd apprehended. She looks like a completely different person compared to the last time he saw her; dead gaze and no fight at all, not entirely there and not entirely aware of those around her. She doesn't even look at the camera like most cases do.

Just what had happened in the Akiba house last night?

"Makes me wonder if it's another one of those demon eaters," Shura goes on. "They're not common, but they happen."

Yukio hums, agreeing again. Todo was proof enough of that back in Kyoto—and possibly even before. But for a similar situation to pop up so soon after? It feels almost too suspicious to be a coincidence.

"How far back has the background check gone?"

"Birth," Shura says. "I already checked for connections to Todo. Squat."

The next door opens, and before Yukio is the final wall keeping their new guest and the exorcists away. It's one of the interrogation rooms, kept guarded by two Middle Second class exorcists. They nod in greeting to the duo.

"Hasn't moved since we put her there," the taller one says. Yukio nods, flipping over to the next page. The pictures of Homura Akiba's body are not the worst he's seen, but definitely up there with his least desired after effects of possession. "Not even a peep."

Shura scratches the back of her neck with a groan. "At least she's not insisting she clean anymore."

"She was in denial," Yukio says dully. He really should be surprised to see the girl in such a state, but the sorry fight she'd put up during their last encounter left a less than ideal impression on him. Yomi used to be the one person of Assiah that he wanted to avoid no matter what, solely out of fear, but now she's no better than the small demons who would torment him as a child. Yukio grew out of his fear, and now he finds it ironic that she's right where he used to be.

It's ironic, but it's also perplexing. No connection to Todo, not even through her mother, and she happens to appear with goblin-like features with no signs of losing her humanity. She's not being used as a limp shield like Shiemi had been so long ago, and she hasn't shown an entirely different state of mind and desire to fight the exorcists who came to collect her. Still Yomi Akiba, but not.

Yukio hands the clipboard to Shura. "I'll see if I can get anything from her," he informs the guards. The taller one nods and steps aside, while the shorter opens the door with one of his many keys. The doors open outwards, momentarily blocking Yukio's sight as he prepares to see Yomi's state in person. Once there's enough space for him to enter, he adds, "I'll let myself out when I'm done."

The doors shut behind him. His whole world is now a room free of any belongings and windows, with only a pitifully possessed girl laying on her side in the middle of it all.

It may not be necessary, but Yukio made extra sure to keep his guns on him when he was told Yomi was brought in. Tranquilisers, poisons and the like. For all he knows a simple bullet won't do much damage, and outright killing her would go against everything exorcists stood for. At the very least they know tranquilisers work on her, especially with how quickly she went down when she tried to keep cleaning her kitchen.

Yomi doesn't bother moving as he stands over her. She doesn't even look up at him, still staring blankly at the doors. The blood on her hands is dried now, almost difficult to see along the darkened fingers and arms. Were it not for the swirl of regular skin along those arms, Yukio would assume the blood had been cleaned off.

"Akiba," he says shortly. A finger twitches—recognition. It's the most Yukio can get out of her in this state. "Do you recognise my voice?"

Another twitch. This time her fingers try to curl up into a fist, but they flop back onto the floor like she's suddenly gone boneless. Yukio tilts his head at her, waiting for a response part of his knows won't come yet. So he circles her, observes her. Takes in as much of the possession's effects as possible.

Two horns atop her head, one of them coated in a white dust. He ponders what it might be as he arrives behind her, finds a few apostrophe-shaped markings most goblins have on their faces along the back of her neck. He hums, continues on his way, and then stops in front of her again to try get a response.

"Akiba."

A twitch. No response.

"Akiba, look at me."

Nothing. She just continues to lay there pitifully, staring at nothing.

Yukio huffs out a sigh through his nose. She's basically gone catatonic, but at the very least he knows she's trying to break out of it. She knows where she is—she just isn't able to do anything.

He turns on his heel and begins walking towards the doors. He'll have to try again later, see if he can find something to bring her out of her daze. Just as he pulls out a key, ready to leave the room, Yukio freezes on the spot.

He swears he heard her just now. Softly, almost inaudible, but _just_ there. Yukio glances over his shoulder at her, curious; she hasn't moved an inch, still watching him blankly.

And then he hears it clearly: "Sorry to bother you."

Yukio's hand drops to his belt instinctively. What does she mean? Is it connected to her mother's final moments? Did someone scold her on the way over? He makes a note of it before turning back to the door again, listening as she apologises again. Even as he walks back through and slides it shut behind him, Yomi apologises softly with each passing breath.

There's a name for this, he thinks as he catches Shura's eye. The man who defined what catatonia is had a symptom named after him—Kahl-something. The way she's acting fits the description to a T, Yukio thinks.

"Not a lot of response," he tells Shura. She pulls a pen out of her coat pocket and scribbles along the first page of the clipboard. "Fingers twitched a few times, went limp pretty quickly. Keeps repeating, 'Sorry to bother you'."

Shura hums. "Got'cha."

He thanks the guards and follows her on her way out. The name is right at the tip of his tongue: Kahl-something, Kahl-something. Shura pulls her phone from her pocket, already phoning someone to pass the information onto. Yukio just furrows his brows. It won't be long before they run into Rin, and the fit his older brother will throw will just derail Yukio's train of thought. If he doesn't remember the rest of that name now, it'll bother him for the next week.

Another door opens. Shura hangs up and digs around in her pocket again, pulling out a small tube with a yellow cover. He watches idly as she uncaps it and twists the bottom, a pale yellow stick of lip balm emerging. The name of the item echoes through his mind as he watches her apply it and smack her lips together with a loud pop.

"Kahlbaum," he blurts out. Shura doesn't even bother looking at him.

"A what now?"

"Nothing—just a word I had on the tip of my tongue." He waves her off as she opens the next door. Rin, as expected, is waiting right on the other side for them. Kuro isn't perched on his shoulders like Yukio expected, and all of the cram school students have left already. It's just his angry older brother staring him down, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

Yukio can imagine the different ways he'll start complaining and arguing. He sucks a deep breath through his nose, ready to brush Rin off however he can and convince him not to butt in for once. But he doesn't need to. Shura takes matters into her own hands, shoving the clipboard into Rin's chest and pushing him back into a stumble.

" _This_ ," she says, starting to walk again, "is what you busted your ass to help."

A flash of horror crosses Rin's face—regret mixed in, Yukio thinks?—before he flips through each page on the clipboard. There's a fear in his brother's eye, something Yukio hasn't truly seen for a while now. Ever since the news broke about Rin's lineage, and the subsequent steps he'd taken to repair the damage it caused, Rin had been taking it somewhat easy. But now Akiba's incident seems to be hitting him hard.

Yukio wants to scowl. He's thankful at his practiced mask, but it's times like this where he wishes he could let it slip just a tad. He should've stopped them from talking so much. He should've made sure Rin had too much work to focus on instead of letting him laze about with a light scolding each time. Rin is on borrowed time—time she's taking from him even now. Yomi Akiba could've just been another case for someone else to handle, but because of Rin's tantrums he's gotten himself involved more than he should want to.

"She's not..." Rin looks up at Shura, then back at the paper. "Is there a—"

"Look at the possession traits," Shura interrupts him. She waves for them over her shoulder to follow, and naturally Rin obeys. Ever since he'd returned from Kyoto, Rin had been following Shura's directions more and more. Yukio can't help wondering if something she'd taught him over there brought on a sense of responsibility in his brother. "Those are goblin horns and hands."

"But goblins only possess rats." Rin looks up at Shura. He leans over to Yukio and adds in a whisper, "Just rats, right?"

"That's what's concerning," Yukio says instead. "We're keeping an eye on her while we make sure there isn't something else going on."

Rin gawks at his brother. Here he goes, Yukio thinks grimly.

"Something else—"

" _Rin_ ," Yukio growls. "After what happened regarding the Impure King, no one can afford to lower their guards around seemingly isolated incidents. Drop it."

Rin's face twitches, a sign that he wants to argue. But he doesn't; instead, his suddenly responsible older brother hands the clipboard back to Shura and keeps up with her strides.

"Does that mean you'll be interrogating her?" he asks. It comes out even and calm, but Yukio knows there's a rampage waiting to happen if even a hint of bad news is given in return.

Shura shrugs. "Four-Eyes did it today," she sighs. "I'll do it tomorrow. We'll see what happens if she doesn't respond from there."

There's a lapse of silence between them. Even as they continue down the corridor and Shura pulls out a key leading to the old boy's dormitory, none of them says anything. Even as Yukio and Rin follow her to their kitchen and divide leftover stew between them, no one makes a peep. Not until they all sit at the table closest to the kitchen and poke at their meals.

Rin breaks that silence—Yukio really can't find it in him to be surprised. It was only a matter of time before he came up with a solution to Shura's open answer.

"If she doesn't respond when you talk to her," Rin says slowly, "I want to give it a try."

Yukio jumps right in before Shura can allow it. "Absolutely not."

And there's that rampage, rearing its ugly head as Rin glares at Yukio. Back when Rin had first arrived at True Cross, he'd have burst into mild flames and jumped out of his chair; but now, when he stares down Yukio with a steeled expression, he looks like he's about to dig into his food instead of maim someone. Maybe Shura _has_ taught him something useful, Yukio muses bitterly.

"Why?" Rin spits. Yukio stirs his stew and lifts the spoon to his lips, blowing gently against the steam.

"You're still just a—"

"Just an Exwire. Blah, blah, blah. I _know_." No signs of the anger escalating. Since when did Rin get into an argument without losing his cool? "I'm also the reason we even prevented that Unpure King stuff from spreading."

"Impure," Yukio corrects him. "And we were desperate then. This is a more controlled scenario."

"All the more reason to test my knowledge as an exorcist," Rin counters. Yukio wants to snort, but keeps the mask steady. Since when did Rin know how to argue _reasonably_? "Everyone goes in there at least once in their life, right? What better way to show how I'm excelling than by using that as an example?"

What even is the point? Why is Rin suddenly so fixated on getting along with this girl—this _child_ who tormented them when they were kids—after so many years? Neither of them liked her. Neither of them was sad she'd moved away before they started middle school. As morbid as it was, Yukio was _furious_ when he'd found out Father Fujimoto had invited her for dinner during her chemotherapy. It was hard enough hiding his own resentment at the time from his brother for forcing temptaint upon him in the womb—but hiding his disdain for a girl who wound up making the night a mess anyway?

He knows Rin has a hard time remembering things he doesn't care about, but he has to remember that disaster of a night, right? And if he doesn't, surely the unconscious hatred of her still remains?

Yukio wants to ask what his deal is. Yukio wants to ask how much the two had managed to patch up over the course of a mere hour last Saturday. Yukio wants to ask why Rin suddenly wants to act like a noble knight in the spotlight again when he _just_ got out of it in time to focus on his studies. Rin's not a selfish person—not knowingly, at least—so it can't be a rush of pride fuelling him. So what is it?

As Yukio ponders this, purposefully ignoring his brother's question, Shura downs half of her stew in one giant gulp. She slams the half-emptied bowl back onto the table and leans against her elbows.

"So," she asks Rin, "what would do if you were allowed to interrogate her?"

The tension in Rin's posture and expression fades. The question must've caught him off-guard. "What?"

"If I let you in there," she goes on. "If she doesn't respond. How would you break through?"

To Yukio's surprise, Rin doesn't jump into an immediate answer. He turns his gaze to his stew, stirring it idly with his spoon. Maybe this will make him back down. He can't act on a whim or out of frustration, which means Yukio won't have to worry about his brother jumping in the middle of this issue for the sake of it.

Yukio takes spoonful after spoonful of his stew. Rin is the only one who doesn't eat, lost in thought as his brother and mentor finish their late dinners.

Even as Shura declares that she's off to bed, and Yukio decides he wants to finish up the next class plans, Rin still stirs his stew and ponders his answer.

* * *

 **Remember, next chapter comes out next week! In the meantime, let me know what you thought and whether or not Yukio's section sounded in character!**


	11. Chapter 10

**I said next week, and it's next week ;) Hope you guys enjoy this chapter, and hopefully the next one will be done soon!**

* * *

 **Chapter Ten**

When Shura comes into Rin's room this afternoon, he still hasn't come up with an answer to her question. He'd hoped for a little more time, for even the barest hint of what would snap Yomi out of her silent state, but nothing about her comes to mind. All he knows is that she wears a lot of pink and purple, and she loathes the idea of another rabies shot in the future. He doesn't even know if she liked the coconut cake me made for them, only remembering her complaint over its colour.

So his stomach is filled with dread when Shura leans in his doorway and tells him, "You've got twelve hours to run a plan by me."

Twelve hours. Twelve hours to come up with a way to help someone he barely knows. It makes him feel sick. He wishes he could back down, but everything in him is screaming not to. He didn't get this chance to help Fujimoto—why ignore the chance to help someone else who still isn't completely gone?

He goes from scribbling ideas onto a sheet of paper to calling Shima over in a panic, setting up a whiteboard in the kitchen with Shura present in the background. Rin doesn't like people hovering so much, but he needs any ideas that will get him and Yomi in trouble ruled out immediately.

Shima sips at melon juice idly as he watches Rin write down his current ideas in certain places—ranging from a new set of clothes made entirely of pink fabrics to bring Kuro with him in the hopes that she'll gush over the small demon cat again. The black marker squeaks and squelches, before finally Rin puts the cap back on it and stands next to the pink-haired boy.

"That's where I hit a wall," he explains. Shima hums. The teen glances warily at Shura once, probably wondering why she's present, before he tilts his head at the whiteboard.

"What's this all for, exactly?" he asks. "All I heard was Akiba needing help."

Rin nods. "She's not responding after I got the call from her yesterday," he summarises. "Shura gave me a chance to help if she couldn't get through—which is where we are now."

"And why am I here?"

"Because you probably know more about her than I do at this point."

Shima chokes on his juice. "You recognised her from childhood!"

"We weren't _friends_ when we were kids," Rin sighs. "She'd beat up Yukio, then I'd beat her up, and then she'd plot revenge in the form of wet willies. That 'date' you set up was the most we got along for an hour."

There's a snort of laughter coming from Shima. He can just imagine what the boy's thinking, how funny he finds the situation. Rin will admit he found it funny in a bitter way after he saw her again: The son of Satan, a powerful vessel of the blue flames filled with superhuman strength, getting into a fight he'd wind up losing as a child with a girl half his height. He just hopes Shima will get over it soon enough to help him with this dilemma.

When Shima quietens down—taking long enough to warrant Shura's direct attention, scrutinising the whiteboard's ideas—he takes the marker from Rin and writes down a few notes.

Among them is mobile phone charms, which makes Rin squint at the board. "She likes those?"

"They were always on her bag or phone when she finished up a shift," Shima explains. "Those were the days I came in just as she was walking out."

He won't comment on how creepy it is that Shima used to go out of his way to arrive _while_ she was working. Underneath the phone charms is "sweets", which makes Rin hum in surprise.

"Sweet food?"

"Well, cupcakes. Sometimes the occasional tart. She actually looked jealous when you asked me to pick those up sometimes."

Rin nods. He can work with sweets. Sweets are a good start. Rin takes the marker back from Shima and lets out a long, thoughtful hum. What else, what else?

"Why is there only material junk on here?" Shura pushes herself between both boys, catching them both in a headlock with each arm. Rin struggles to break free while Shima lets out a dumb giggle. "Personally I'm all for that, but how are clothes and cakes supposed to make her respond?"

Shit. Good question.

"Girls like clothes, don't they?"

Shura snorts. "You knew each other as kids. Why not work with that?"

"I just said," Rin repeats loudly, "that we beat each other up when we were kids!"

"Work with it."

Rin lets out a long, drawn out groan. If he'd wanted Shura's opinion on what to do instead of what wasn't allowed, he would've asked. Rin won't say it out loud, though; Shura would probably tighten her grip on him and choke him half to death. She eventually relents and releases the boys, snatching the marker from Rin and scribbling something along the bottom of the whiteboard.

He reads the instructions carefully, ignoring the fat bubble-style she'd written, "Goal," in. _More than a finger twitch_.

As Shura taps the space next to the goal, she says, "It doesn't have to be a _good_ reaction. You could make her angry, you could pick a fight with her. You could insult her—anything to break her out of her unresponsive state."

"But—"

"The Grigori will want progress," Shura goes on. "The more she can tell us—the sooner she can tell us—the better."

He clenches his fists tightly by his sides. Anything to make her talk; it sounds so barbaric, especially after what she'd just gone through. Rin can understand why someone like him had been subjected to the harsher interrogations by Shura, but as far as everyone in this room knows Yomi is still herself. There is no Kurikara to seal a demon heart in, which rules out half-demon; there were no telltale signs in childhood, being just as fragile as everyone else Rin would lash out against in kindergarten. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth just thinking about it. Rin can still remember the sound of her forearm snapping during one of their fights, the way he'd been forced to apologise and to let her get away with being a brat. To do it again when he _knows_ she isn't like that anymore...

He can't do it. He may want the top spot and to be the best exorcist out there—to kick Satan's ass—but he won't go against what it means to be an exorcist. Rin would be no better than the demons he hunts and studies.

But to keep Shura happy, he mutters, "Whatever."

They're left in a silent state after that, all of them staring at the whiteboard with blank expressions. Rin's knuckles are white as he continues clenching his fists in frustration.

He really doesn't know how to do this without using material objects. Rin's levelled with people in the past (in his own Rin-like way), but the way he goes about it isn't the best for such a fragile situation. Someone like Bon needs sense knocked into them, to have the stubborn streak momentarily stumble. Shiemi had needed to see just how badly she'd let her grandmother's wish go to waste, a tough by reassuring pep talk. How does he approach this? How does he level with _this_?

All his situation has in common with hers is a drastic change from human to not-quite-either. And it's exactly what sets off the light bulb in his head.

He takes the marker from Shura and pops the lid off of it. Without even a hint of hesitation, he writes down his idea smack bang in the middle of the whiteboard. He draws a line to the sweets option, marking underneath it, _Plan A_.

Shura is gawking at him when he labels his new idea as _Plan B_. At the very least, she doesn't yell at him for it.

"At least you didn't decide it should be the other way around," she praises him.

* * *

He's actually nervous. It'd be kinda funny if it wasn't so serious. Rin carries the plates with both hands, thumbs holding the forks carefully in place. Shura follows from behind, close enough to breathe down Rin's neck if she wants to.

Whether or not this works out _well_ is up in the air for Rin. He wants Plan A to work so bad, to avoid having to use Plan B, but the sinking feeling in his stomach predicts otherwise.

"You're sure about this?" Shura asks for the umpteenth time. Rin puts on his most determined expression, glancing at her over his shoulder.

"Absolutely," he half-lies. Part of Rin is confident that this will work and that he won't be proven wrong to Yukio, but part of him has doubts. Doubts that he'll get to Yomi through kindness, doubts that he'll get a positive reaction. Rin isn't lucky enough to get those very often, after all.

The doors to the room are right in front of them. The exorcists standing guard bristle at the sight of Rin—a common reaction from those who haven't met him personally before. They both look to Shura before nodding a reluctant greeting to the teen, and then they're handing over a key to Rin with short instructions.

The key leads back to the exact room they're in, and most who go in already have one in their possession. Rin asks them to put it in the pocket of his uniform, holding the slices of cake up higher as an explanation. He's expected to give the key back straight away when he comes out. The doubtful looks on their faces is enough to make him think his plan won't work.

"I'm off," he tells Shura. Shura nods and signals for the doors to open.

The first thing he sees is Yomi's enlarged hands and horns. He doesn't even see Yomi herself, too focused on the possession in front of him. Rin inches closer and closer as the doors slide shut behind him—and then he pauses, catching sight of the dried blood as the doors finally seal him in. Yomi doesn't move; she just continues staring at nothing, laid out on her side.

Plan A, he thinks with a gulp.

"Hey, Akiba!" he calls out cheerfully. Rin walks casually over towards her and sets down one of the plates by her head. "It's been a while."

He can see what Yukio means by unresponsive. She doesn't even twitch at the sound of his voice. If Rin didn't see the rise and fall of her shoulders with her breathing, he would've assumed she was dead. He sucks in a deep breath and drops to the floor, crossing his ankles and digging into his own slice of cake.

"I made more coconut cake for us," he says around a bite, "but I probably should've asked if you wanted that. At least I didn't make it blue this time."

He scoops up some icing on his fork and waves it in front of her face. Rin spots a flicker a recognition in her cloudy eyes as she locks onto it. "See? Yellow, like it's supposed to be."

And as soon as he'd gotten her attention, it's gone again. Yomi goes back staring aimlessly, ignoring everything around her. Rin's heart sinks. _Please_ , he begs her in his mind, _don't make me use Plan B_.

He chomps down on another piece of the cake as the silence stretches on. It's starting to get uncomfortable, the way she just watches without even _seeing_ him, making him feel exposed and invisible at the same time. By the time Rin has made it through half of his slice, nothing of note has happened.

As he watches and slowly begins to panic, hiding it as best he can, Rin thinks back to the other ideas on the whiteboard. Maybe Shura was right about using something like memories together as an example. Just baking something in order to avoid his Plan B isn't doing enough.

So Rin sets down his place and picks at his fingertips, trying to recall something big for the both of them.

"Do you..." He can't look at her, too embarrassed by the events that had happened when they were kids. It's shocking how much they've changed in just a few years, he thinks. "Do you remember that time I put a whole bunch of cicadas in your backpack?"

She doesn't respond, so he takes it upon himself to continue. Maybe if he just keeps doing she'll pull herself back out.

"I think I got in trouble the day before for trying to fight you. You destroyed Yukio's drawing or something, and the teacher sided with you because of how often I fought everyone." He smiles wryly at the memory of his old kindergarten teacher. She was a real asshole. "You never noticed until you reached into the bag for a snack, and then you threw up all over the place. It was kinda hilarious," he chuckles softly. Then he clears his throat and adds, "Sorry for that, by the way."

Her fingers twitch, just like the way Shura said they did for her and Yukio. Rin wants to jump for joy—he's halfway through today's goal!

"You always wore your hair in those big pigtails," he recalls further. "I think at one point everyone thought we liked each other because of how often we fought. Up until the scissors got involved, I mean. Sorry I gave you such a bad haircut during naptime, too."

A small huff. Rin looks up at her in shock, and her eyes are slowly coming back into focus. Shura was right. The memories are doing a better job than the cake. He clears his throat again and starts to munch on his cake, only to stop after a bite when he sees Yomi is still watching him. Actually _watching_ him this time.

Rin sets down his plate and wipes at his mouth. "Shit, sorry. Your arms aren't too heavy to lift, are they?"

No response. She just keeps on staring, her eyes glued in place. Rin starts to get unnerved a bit. She isn't dead now, is she? He leans closer, listening for her breathing, and hears air go in and out of her nose.

Okay, not dead. That's at least some kind of relief.

With a crestfallen expression, Rin finishes off the rest of his slice and sets the plate down again. He sucks in a deep breath and heaves out a sigh. Memories aren't doing everything he'd hoped. He might have to go to Plan B, he thinks grimly.

But then Yomi's hands twitch again. He looks at them, watches as they clench into large fists and shake. He hears her breathing hitch, just barely notices that she's curling in on herself by a fraction.

"Sorry to bother you," she chokes out.

Rin stares at her in horror. She'd said that on the phone just as he'd picked it up again. He'd wondered at the time if she'd said it because of the fuss her mother's actions had made, but after hearing it following the trip down memory lane...

Yomi must've thought she was going to be in a much worse situation than this. She must've thought she'd only had one chance to make amends or apologise to Rin for ignoring him. She must've been even more scared than he'd thought.

So he reaches out, hesitating for just a second; he decides against grabbing her hand, settling for scooting closer and setting aside her cake.

"You weren't a bother," he reassures her.

"Sorry to bother you."

"You're not bothering me."

Her voice wavers, like she's fighting back tears. "Sorry to bother you."

Rin chews his lip. Yukio had said she never said anything else but one sentence. He wonders why it's this particular one she's saying. But he doesn't dwell on it for long. Rin picks her cake back up and chops a small portion off with the fork. He holds it out in front of her, waiting for her to catch sight of it.

When she does, Rin says, "I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner."

When Rin exits the room, he has a bittersweet feeling in his stomach. There's no smile on his face or shit-eating grin like he usually has when he proves Yukio wrong. There's no skip to his step, only an extra slouch than usual. When Rin hands the key back to the exorcist who'd loaned it to him, he gets stunned stares in return.

"She ate," he reports glumly. "Got an emotional response, too."

The taller of the two pats his shoulder awkwardly. "Good, uh... Good job, Okumura."

He should feel happy that he didn't have to resort to Plan B, but he can't bring himself to express it. He tells himself that everyone handles grief differently—Rin had bottled it all up after Fujimoto's death, Shiemi blamed herself for everything after her grandmother's. But it's difficult seeing the more emotional ways of coping. It's difficult to watch someone he could've helped just break down at their lowest point.

It's too different from what he's used to. He's not sure if he can see this through, for once.

Shura takes the plates from him and peels leftover cream and icing off with her finger. As she samples it, she tells him, "Don't be surprised if they ask you to talk to her again. She might regress after a while."

"Yeah," he says evenly.

"Was it as easy as you'd hoped?"

Rin shoves his hands into his pockets. He glares at his feet as they walk through the corridor, as Shura produces a key leading back to the old boys' dorm.

"It was easy to get a response," he starts. And then he stops. How does he describe what happened after he evoked grief in her? He does he say it without sounding like an absolute wimp?

Shura sums it up for him delicately, as expected of someone who's learned to read Rin like a book by now. "The response itself was difficult."

"Yeah."

"It gets easier." She gives him a light, playful shove. "It has to, if you wanna kick Satan's ass."


	12. Chapter 11

**It's been a while! Sorry for the long break I took, hopefully I won't neglect this story for _too_ long again. But yeah! Lemme know what you think of this update and stuff!**

* * *

There's roughly a week passing by before Rin is asked to talk to her again. He abandons all homework and goes back into the kitchen the night before, cooking up a lunch for the two of them in the hopes she'll be able to eat again. He packs an omelette each, frankfurts cut into squids and some steamed rice he attempts to dye pink. It looks decent enough in the lunch boxes, and it gives him one less thing to worry about when he goes to bed that night.

When he gets up in the morning, early enough to take his time getting ready, Rin feels a conflicting mixture of excitement and concern. He wants to see how well she's been doing since they last spoke (well, since Rin last reassured her); but the little voice in the back of his mind, nagging him in Yukio's voice, reminds him that the last time he was allowed to see her was when no one had made progress with her. Rin doesn't like the idea of Yomi regressing after a week without contact.

He's fortunate that it isn't the case as he approaches the large doors of the interrogation room, Shura tailing him with her arms crossed over her chest. Rin can see the large room, can see Yomi sitting on the floor in the middle of it, and he can see the awareness in her expression as she looks up to check who is visiting her.

"Hey," Rin greets casually. The doors slam shut behind him, Shura wasting no time standing guard by them. "How're you feeling?"

Yomi manages a weak smile and a stiff shrug. It's better than what he got last week, he supposes.

"Brought us some lunch!" Rin jogs over to where she sits and joins her. Concern flashes across her features, purple eyes darting to the large hands folded over her lap. Rin, luckily, had thought ahead of time with how difficult it might be for Yomi to eat with goblin hands. As soon as he sets down the lunch boxes he unfolds the cloth wrapped around them and reveals two metal spoons. "Wasn't sure what you'd be in the mood for, so it's rice, omelette and little hot dogs!"

An audible gurgle sounds from Yomi's stomach. When he looks up at her, ready to make a joke, he finds himself on the receiving end of a genuinely relieved expression. It wasn't like the weak, jerky response he'd gotten earlier. Rin could compare it to tension lifting, to a personal reassurance taking effect. Had Yomi been worried about Rin coming today? Is she worried about Shura being in the room? Does she know what Rin will have to ask her about, regardless of how carefree they are right now?

He lifts open the lid of the top lunch box, and Yomi lets out a pleased gasp. "You made it pink," she mumbles. Rin nods proudly.

For the most part she doesn't struggle with eating. Since last week she seems to have found a suitable compromise for how she holds and uses things with her larger hands. Rin actually has to hold back a snort of a laugh when he sees her pinch the spoon between her thumb and index finger, the remaining three poised up in the air like she's pretending to be royalty. The lunch box is easier for her to grab on to, at least: The large palm of her new hand holds the whole box with more balance and security than Rin's own could. It's like Yomi's hand doubles as a small table now, Rin thinks with amusement.

She only gets a few bites in, Rin hesitating as he debates his next move, before Shura clears her throat from behind them. Rin startles—crap, did he introduce her? Does Yomi know who Shura is? She has to, right? But if she doesn't, and Rin ignores Shura, he'll never hear the end of it once he leaves.

"A—Ah," Rin tries lamely. Yomi looks up at him, mouth open and a spoonful of rice halfway on its journey there. He pauses at the sight of the slightly pointed canines, longer than his own. Wow. How hadn't he noticed those? It makes sense, given that it's a demonic trait and goblins have big teeth, but still... "Have you, uh— Do you know Shura?"

And she looks over Rin's shoulder at Shura, shoving the spoon in her mouth and glaring daggers at the woman.

"I've literally been in here every day this past week, dumbass," Shura calls.

"She has," Yomi agrees darkly.

He's curious about how bad Shura's attempts to get answers went. He's not pushing his luck, though. Neither side of this conflict looks willing to spare him from the crossfire.

"Then, um... You know why I'm back, yeah?" he goes on. Yomi looks back at him. She nods, but it's the tiniest, most cautious bob of her head. Now he _really_ needs to watch what he says to her... "We... I mean, True Cross can only help if you talk to them about what happened. They might even be able to reverse what happened to you, or something."

She doesn't say anything. She just stares at him as she slowly continues to eat.

Shura's gonna kill him for this. "Why don't we make it like a game?" he tries. A single brow arches while the sound of Shura's hand smacking her forehead echoes over. "I'll ask you something, and then you can ask me anything in return. Okay?"

Yomi's quiet for a moment longer. She's clearly pondering the offer, tempted, and when she sets down the lunch box and spoon Rin panics over the possibility that he'd scared her. She flexes one of her hands and shifts into a cross-legged position. With a deep, steeling breath, she looks back at Rin and nods.

He can hear Shura moving around behind him, probably getting a pen and paper ready. He's surprised she had enough faith in him to come prepared for note-taking.

"Okay. Uh. What..."

God, this is harder than TV makes it look.

"I mean—Can you summarise what happened that night? Like, just an overview?"

At least she doesn't laugh at his horrific interrogational skills.

"Well," Yomi starts. She pauses to gather her thoughts, and then goes on, "Mom kinda went off the handle. She found this animal I'd been hiding until the pound opened, and then she chased me around the house. Held me down in the kitchen and... Shit, I don't know how but she force fed me the animal. She made me eat it _alive_. A—And I think I blacked out for a while? I just... One minute I was choking on the animal, the next I was standing up and all—" Yomi waves her hands about, one of her fingers brushing against her horns.

"Animal?" Rin asks. Shura isn't stopping him or calling out questions, so he must be on the right track.

"Yeah. I think it followed me home the night before, and it was feral as they come. Ate my pizza long enough for me to catch it." She held her hand a good foot above the ground. "This big? And—God, this is going to sound crazy. It had hands like how mine look and it was green and had horns."

Her eyes slide shut and she sighs at herself. "Just as bad as Mom," she admonishes.

Rin does his best to distract her from that particular train of thought. "Anything you wanna ask me now?"

For the first few minutes Yomi is silent. Her eyes are glued to the floor, lip curled in concentration, and it's more than obvious that she's debating over what would be a good starter question. Rin can't blame her for taking her time. If he were in her shoes right now, he'd want to pick the most important thing first.

She finally seems to settle on something, letting out a soft breath and nodding to herself. "So how are you involved in this stuff? Like, are you more than just a student at the school?"

His shoulder lifts and falls before he can stop himself. "Technically I'm a student, since I'm still learning it all—but yeah, True Cross isn't where I'm just getting an education. It's where I'm learning to become an exorcist."

A snort. "What, like those horror movie priests?" she scoffs at him. Rin scowls at her.

" _Way_ better than those old farts. Anyway, my turn again." She looks to have relaxed a little, the jab and disbelief seeming to put her in a better mindset to handle the information. Yomi's going to try rationalise it all, he thinks, and that'll just make all this harder to convince her of. "How'd your mom know to feed you the, ah... animal?"

Yomi has to think about her answer again, but it's not with the same carefulness from before. No, Rin knows the expression of someone who repeats the question back at themselves, suddenly realising they might actually know a clue of an answer. He's held that expression plenty of times before, after all; there's no way he wouldn't recognise it now. He waits patiently for her to figure out the answer, to say _something_ and give Shura something to work with.

And she does, five whole minutes after debating with herself.

"She said... She said some ladies she met and got invited out to dinner with told her about it," Yomi says slowly. "I never got their names, but Mom was so sure about the animal..."

"Did she give you any names?"

Yomi shakes her head. "I didn't even know she was capable of leaving me on my own for more than an hour after sundown," she admits. "I wasn't about to ruin her good mood by questioning it."

Rin glances over his shoulder. Shura's writing information down at the speed of light, barely even glancing up at the two teens. She's more than likely got a plan formulating already.

"Okumura," Yomi starts softly. His head snaps back in her direction. She's watching him like a hawk now, clearly unnerved by her next question but also desperate to hear an answer. "What happened to me?"

He ponders for a second. For half a minute. For a while moment too long. He wants so bad to be able to answer, to make her feel more at ease like he wish he'd been during his own changes and the loss of his own parent, but everything he could possibly say dies in his throat. What would make it better? What would make it worse? How delicately should he answer? Should he even answer at all, hiding behind a lame, _I don't know_?

"There's a working theory right now."

Rin startles. He looks back to Shura again, finding her staring back with what has to be the most sympathetic gaze he's seen on her. She's making this as calm as possible, he realises. She's picked up that more stress will close Yomi off again.

"There's regular possessions that happen," she explains as she twirls her pen. "Some demons can possess humans, some can only possess objects or small animals. Take, for example, a goblin—they're small and impish, and they only have enough power to possess rats and large rodents."

Yomi's hand flies to her arm, where a chunk of skin had previously been missing. Shit, Rin thinks. She'd said a rat had bitten her when she'd tried going to the Monastery. Had it been a goblin? Is that how she received the temptaint?

Shura goes on, "Not all demons can possess humans, but then this is where the other type of possession comes into play—forced possession. A human devours a demon, capable of possessing humans or not, and forces the demon to possess them."

"But why?" Yomi says. "They just... let the demon take over?"

"Never said that's how forced possession works," Shura corrects her. She clicks her pen and begins writing notes again, this time making sure to glance back at the teens every so often. "When a human eats a demon, they force the demon's power onto their body—but they remain the dominant personality, you could say. It's a dangerous process that even exorcists are reluctant to use, since there's always a high risk of being genuinely possessed or being killed in the process. Some humans," Shura adds, "don't have the strength to house some demons."

Horror dawns on Yomi's face. Rin curses to himself, ready to calm her down again and change the subject with another question. Before he gets the chance, he hears her mumble, "So Mom forced me to be possessed?"

Rin jumps on the opportunity as quickly as possible. "Do you know why she wanted you to be possessed?"

She scrunches up her face. "She's a hypochondriac," Yomi scoffs. "She just... She was obsessed with making sure I was healthy all the time."

"She was right about being healthy, at least," Shura chimes. Yomi snaps her head up to Shura again, glaring so intensely that Rin fears he'll have to keep Shura from drawing her sword against a furious Yomi. "Demonic healing is a thing of wonder. Something fatal to a regular person is just a scratch to most demons—provided it didn't come from something blessed, that is."

"That's not important now," Rin tries. "A—Akiba, do you—"

And Yomi turns the glare to him. He can't help feeling his heart sink, his mind going back to the day she'd exploded at him after a disastrous dinner following her release from hospital. There'd been so much hate in her eyes—there's that hate right now, even—but it hadn't been directed at Rin. No, when Yomi ranted and vented that night, it'd been abundantly clear that her rage was at her situation, probably even herself. The type of rage that comes with exhaustion and a desire to just give up, despite everything in you begging against it.

He could easily choke up, but he has to ask at least this much to make _some_ headway. They can't just walk out with the knowledge that some women Homura Akiba knew told her to do this.

"Can you give us a list of people your mother used to talk to? Regularly or not, just anyone that comes to mind. We'll... We'll go away after that, I promise," he adds, his tone softer and sincere.

They get a grand total of seven names—three of which are Homura's parents and ex-husband, one of which is a therapist she'd harass to always be available to Yomi—and Yomi shuts off almost immediately. She doesn't say much of a farewell, scooting around until she's facing away from the doors. The last thing Rin sees of her is her sulking frown, and it sits in the forefront of his mind once the doors slam shut behind him.

* * *

It didn't take long for her to figure out that keeping track of time in here is useless, but she still keeps estimates based on when her food is brought to her. One big meal in the morning, all rice and a plum if she's lucky, and then a serving of soup in a bowl big enough to accommodate her hands before bed. She counts her meals on her fingers, using them as a reference for each visit she's had from Rin, and it's what helps her conclude that _maybe_ two days have passed since he'd come in to interrogate her.

It's on the morning of the maybe-second day that Yomi feels the loneliness sink in again, the occasional flashes of the night she'd called for help dancing through her mind. This room is so big, she thinks as she scoops rice into her palm. It's too big to feel safe in. Too big to feel relaxed in. It's too big for just one person.

The duo of exorcists who delivered and collected her meals came in a good hour after she'd eaten, and they wasted no time picking up her tray and making sure she stayed far from the doors. They wouldn't see each other again until dinner, where Yomi would get a bland soup and neither man would say a word to her, other than a clear and concise, "Maintain your distance."

So it's a little bit of a surprise that, shortly after breakfast on the maybe-second day, someone new enters the room. Yomi's in the middle of stretching her hands when she sees the black coat come through the doors, heavy boots falling to the floor with confident steps. The loneliness fades just a tad, brief company given to her again—even if it's just another interrogation from a stranger. Yomi looks up, drops her hand, and fights back a scowl.

He carries folded clothes in his hands, big and dark from the looks of them, and the expression on his face tells leagues about how he feels about being sent to do this. The feeling is mutual, Yomi finds, as she prepares to get into another verbal argument with Yukio Okumura.

He stops a foot away from her. He holds out the clothes and says stiffly, "My brother offered these. To make you more comfortable."

Yukio drops the clothes the moment she reaches out for them. Yomi actually does scowl this time, but miraculously holds her tongue and keep from saying something unfortunate. She unfolds the first item of clothing—navy blue and thick, the kind of hoodie Yomi used to hide under back when Homura's actions made her self-conscious rather than angry—and she lets out a small, "Huh?"

Feet scuff against the floor. She looks back up to Yukio, only to find his back facing her.

"Get changed quickly," he orders her. "We're leaving."

She's not sure why _Yukio_ , of all people, is letting her out, but she's not about to complain. Yomi wobbles to her feet, doing her best to balance the weight of her arms, and wastes no time changing from her weeks-old clothes. She hadn't even been allowed to clean up other than to get the blood washed off of her when they'd first brought her in, and Yomi doesn't want to miss the chance to wear something marginally cleaner. She kicks her old clothes away and forces herself into the hoodie, her horns only getting caught once on the neckline. Her hands slide surprisingly easy through the arms, the material stretching to accommodate their size and leaving a nice, snug fit. The khaki cargo pants make her cringe a little, but they fit well enough for her to be satisfied.

It's something she normally wouldn't dare consider wearing, but right now it feels like she's in the finest of clothing made by the most talented of tailors. No blood, no smell of dirt and ash, no reminders of why she's here in the first place.

"'Kay," she grunts at Yukio. She kicks at her old clothes with her bare feet for emphasis. "'M ready."

Yukio doesn't bother to turn around. He just walks over to the doors and unlocks it, motioning for her to follow.

The world outside of her big, empty room is... Bigger. Emptier. So many hallways and high ceilings, but almost nothing outside of the ornate structure to suggest personality or anything other than a Gothic aesthetic. The exorcists who guard her old room actually wave her goodbye when she glances back at them with anxiety, and Yomi finds herself waving back meekly.

Yukio leads her down one hallway, then another, before finally he stops at a doorway and clicks his tongue. She can't see most of his expression, but she knows what pissed off looks like from posture alone. The way he plucks his keys from his coat, the way he jams one of them into the lock on the door. Even the hesitation to turn it, his entire frame going still like he still can't figure out _why_ this is happening.

He turns the key and says, "You aren't being released home—to your grandparents or your father, whichever you choose—until the investigation concludes."

Yukio opens the door, and the bare minimum of the room she can see looks nothing like the haunting building they're in.

"You've been put in my custody until we can figure out how to help you, as per the orders of Sir Pheles of True Cross."

The way he specifies that someone else is making him do this, that he implies he wishes he wasn't the one chosen, causes her to blurt out, "Fuck off."

Yukio just hums once, almost agreeing with her, and enters the room.


End file.
